Even the model of the charity Christmas card is no use: shops still make a profit on them, and there is also money to be made for printers, dye-makers, postal workers and people who transport the raw materials and lunches for all the previously-mentioned.

You could make your own card, but if you do so you must take care not to purchase any glitter, stiff pink card, or silver marker pens. Raw materials must not be purchased from any supplier. What must be used should be otherwise waste. Admittedly you will then be depriving the garbage collectors or professional recyclers of a little of their livelihood, and I no more wish to deprive people than to enrich them. However, if you select materials that would otherwise lie around your house for years this effect will be minimalised.

Suggested materials include junk mail, the liners of CDs you never listen to any more, potato peelings, meteorites and other space debris, and any objects of uncertain provenance and unknown function that have found their way into your house at least five years previously. They should be glued together with a paste made from stray flour from floury baps.

You could make your own if you have the talent although working for a long period of time will require food and coffee that will have to be purchased. Otherwise, you will have to find someone nice to make it for you. And don't pay them, don't even buy them a beer.

For those who are unable to make a card themselves, the card should be manufactured by other unpaid people, for instance by prisoners, by soldiers on their own time, by monks, or by a cooperative of disinterested nice people.

As for transport, on no account should the postal service be used, since they are one of the great promoters of the idea of Valentine's Day. Ideally you will bring your selected waste materials to the place of manufacture and collect the card yourself afterwards for delivery to your loved one. Failing that, goods will be transported using an already-present network with minimal overheads, possibly some combination of dog-walkers, stray cats, and joggers.

Naturally, this card-producing system should be in no way promoted through advertising, websites or cute little features on the TV news. Commercialism will in no way be involved from conception to delivery (of the card, not of the baby).

Finally, the card should have lots of blank space inside, so that in future years, partners can pass it back and forth between each other, providing a record of their love. And they will never have to buy another card.