Electric (un)necessities

I saw the Tescos recycling centre again today. And started on my usual rant about it. Which is really quite unproductive. So instead of ranting to Hwsgo, I'm going to start a list of things that are so mindlessly wasteful that they can't possibly justify their place in a civilised green economy.

1. Automatic recycling machines. What? The? F? Which genius thought: "I'd like to encourage people to recycle things so they can make the planet last a bit longer. I know: we'll replace all those boring (and over-used) metal recycling containers with something that takes ages to load, uses lots of electricity, and has a huge ground footprint". This. Is. Not. Green. At best, it's pseudo-green to encourage people to recycle things because it gives them points, and to put a bloody great big electric into the carpark presumably because it looks nattier than the original set of mismatched metal containers. So consider. The big box takes lots of types of recycled materials (bottles, cans... erm... anything else?) but only has two slots in it, into which you can post just one thing at a time. The original bins had 6 holes each, through which you could post bottles, cans etc as quickly as your heart desired (and your hands could manage). Clustered with this were boxes for foil, shoes, books, clothes, and all the other things that most people don't know that they can recycle unless they're looking at them. This system has been working in carparks all over the country for an awfully long time now. So why mess with it? Why replace it with something that actively consumes time, patience and electricity? Why? And before anyone says things about wind turbines and solar panels: I've looked. These don't appear to be fitted to the machine at my local supermarket. And if they were, I'd much rather they were powering something a little more useful and a little less hypocritical.
2. Automatic towel dispensers. A serious pet hate. When we don't even notice that we're using electricity to do what we used to do with one tug on a (manual) paper towel dispenser, then we've seriously lost our way about energy use. And then there's the automatic tap. What in Gods' name (deliberate apostrophe: choose your own deity, including none) is wrong with turning a tap on for yourself? Okay, so it probably means less maintenance on the washer front, but at what cost to the environment? And then there's this, the electric kitchen towel dispenser (and its friend, the electric-powered bin lid). Which is wrong in so many ways that I don't even know where to start.
3. Electric toilet seat covers. Actually, I've noticed that the favourite places for this sort of electro-madness are airports and service stations. Maybe it's just a subtle form of acknowledgement: y'know, we exist because you're using up too much energy, so we say sod it to political correctness and thinking green, we're just going to party like we're on biofuels. Man.
4. I can now make an exception for electric carving knives however. When my dominant hand stopped working for a while recently, I discovered just how difficult it is to carve bread with just one hand. In fact, it's impossible: I was reduced to making marmite sandwiches by putting the bread under one arm and tearing lumps off it with the other hand, then pasting marmite onto the results. It's not pretty, and said electric carving knife would have made all the difference. And probably led to another dodgy accident, but lets not go there.

Okay, QVC generation: it's over to you now. Prove to me that I'm wrong about this...