I'd like to do a little informal survey. I'm wondering how many pieces of literature are actually distributed to the public. Not how many pieces are REPORTED placed, but actually placed. When I was a dub over thirty years ago we nearly had to beg the public to take that crap without having to contribute a penny for them. This included books. More often than not, the public would refuse even if they were offered for free. Smart people that public. We got to keep whatever contributions we were given. Hell, on a good five hour day of door-to-door work, we'd usually get enough to almost buy a cup of coffee. That is, if we pooled all contributions we received.
Whenever the CO would visit and see us do it, he would discourage the practice with the argument that the public would only see value in the literature if they paid something for it. He did not tell us it was crap whether people paid for it or not.
I'll be the first to admit I often fudged on my placement numbers when I was pioneering. I wonder how widespread this fudging is today. It was difficult to fake Bible studies, because elders and COs would often want to accompany us on them. That was a great way for them to pick up an hour of time, while sitting on their butts and doing nothing, except to expound once in a while. I know of dubs who had several studies, all of them fake. They knew the homes where no one would ever be at home during the day, and so even if an elder tagged along, no one would answer the door. "They must have forgotten our study today," would be they excuse offered.
Given the pressure to perform (or else), I wonder how many dubs today fudge on placements and return visits. Not to mention hours. Did you?
It would interesting for someone to annualize the number of Watchtowers and Awakes printed and then compare it with the annual reported placements for same. This would yield the absolute minimum number of mags that are heaved in the trash where they belonged in the first place.
Subtract from the number of placements some sort of percent to allow for lies on the field service report and we could determine what percent of placements are made compared with the total printed.
If we also subtract the number of magazines tossed into laundromats as dubs go running by at top speed, that would probably reduce "placements" by another 25%! Not to mention magazines stuffed in doors and left on porches when no one is at home.
The net number remaining subtracted from the total printed and factored into how many trees it took to create essentially trash littering the world, would give us an idea of how much the WTS cares for the environment they are destroying to keep the cash coming in for themselves and their pet projects.
Farkel