Some 120,000 prospectuses prepared for the Mighty River Power share float had to be sent to the recyclers due to lower than expected demand for the documents.
Two-hundred-and-fifty thousand booklets were produced for the share float earlier this year, but Finance Minister Bill English says many prospective shareholders looked at it online, rather than ordering a hard copy.
Mr English says it would have been better to avoid the cost of producing the extra material, but as it was a new process, no one knew how the numbers would flow through.
Labour's state-owned enterprise spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove says the Government's expectations of interest in the float were too high.
The Treasury won't say how much it cost to produce the prospectuses, or how many have been printed for the current share float of Meridian Energy.
