Using paper wisely is the easiest way for any business to cut back on its environmental burden. It’s also a great strategy to reduce budgeting costs. It’s simple, and any business—small or large—can do it! Here are ten practical tips for getting started:
1. Print only when necessary. Encourage your employees and coworkers to think about the environment before they print and to print only what needs to be printed. It’s hard to break the habit of printing everything, but with PDFs, unlimited email accounts, and large hard drives, many documents can stay in digital format, never reaching paper. Consider adding an eco-friendly signature to your emails.
2. Reuse scrap paper. Scrap paper is great for small bits of information like notes, phone numbers, and URLs. Simply collect scrap paper in a bin and then cut it up into smaller, note-sized pieces to be reused, or it can be reused to print draft documents on the back. A great place to keep a collection bin is near a printer or a copier. Just be careful not to reuse confidential business documents that require shredding.
3. Keep PDFs. Instead of storing important records as paper files, keep them as electronic files such as PDFs. They’re also easy to find and share (via email or shared folders). The beauty of PDFs is they will always be viewable in the future, unlike say, an old WordPerfect file.
4. Scan documents. You can scan documents to your hard drive instead of making photocopies, and then email them to customers or employees. New inexpensive scanners upload large documents automatically and can save them as PDFs.
5. Use electronic forms. Use online and electronic forms for anything from job applications to inventory management to purchasing records. These documents take up very little digital space and can be kept much longer than paper documents. Google Docs is a great free application for forms that save data into a spreadsheet, for example.
6. Issue electronic receipts. Allow your customers to opt out of printed receipts and instead receive electronic receipts via email.
7. Use online banking. Pay invoices, transfer money between accounts, and monitor all your expenses online. Save the web pages as PDFs to keep permanent bank statements and records.
8. Select ‘Print Preview.’ Whenever you print, be sure to do a preview to avoid printing more pages than you think you are going to (i.e. web advertisements). You can also select specific pages or highlight the exact text or paragraphs you want to print, instead of printing the entire document.
9. Choose an Online Fax Service. You no longer need a dedicated fax machine receiving and printing junk faxes all day. Use eFax or other electronic fax services that reroute your incoming faxes and send them to your email. Outgoing faxes can be sent from your desktop or scanned.
10. Use both sides of the page. This can be done either by printing double-side or copying double-sided, or it can be done by reusing the backs of scrap paper. Consider placing a bin for scrap near a centrally located printer used specifically for draft documents.
In addition to these simple guidelines to reduce excess consumption and waste of paper, you will also want to develop a plan to recycle any paper your business can no longer reuse. The combination of some of these these prudent paper practices are part of achieving a Green Business Certification with the Green Business Bureau, in-person verified by Green Irene. A great way to encourage recycling is to purchase recycling bins for employee workstations and highly trafficked locations, such as shared printers. Green Irene now carries recycling bins that are perfect for such business applications. Ask your Green Irene Eco-Consultant for help creating a recycling strategy and implementing the recycling bins today.
After starting my own eco-consultant business this past year, my eyes opened up at the amount of waste Americans go through each year. I wanted to see how much paper my company used. After doing a little research, I was amazed at the amount of office paper we consumed last year. We used approximately 9,700 reams of 8 ½ x 11 paper last year. That’s equivalent to $31,008.29. That’s a lot of paper. Below are some astonishing facts about office waste paper.
- If you were to eliminate office paper from your waste stream, you could cut your waste bill by 50% or more.
- For every ton of recycled paper it can save up to 17 trees.
- The paper industry ranks 4th in contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, and contribute 9% of the manufacturing sector’s carbon emissions.
- If the U.S could cut office paper use by just 10% it would prevent the emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases (the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road).
- One year’s worth of the New York Times newspaper weighs 520 pounds. To print a Sunday edition of the NYT it takes 75,000 trees.
- With all the office paper we waste every year we could build a 12-foot high wall of paper from New York to California.
- The average American attorney uses 1 ton of paper every year.
- Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 682.5 gallons of oil (think about that next time you’re standing at the pump).
- American consumers receive 41 pounds of junk mail per year.
- US offices create 12.1 trillion sheets of paper per year.
- 40% of the solid mass in landfills is paper and paperboard waste.
- More than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail.
- Paper usage is rising by around 20% every year, with the average office worker using approximately 50 sheets of paper every day in the typical office.
Your mind is probably swirling with the amount of info I just provided, but ask yourself one simple question: What can I do today to reduce the amount of paper I use at home and at the office?
Luckily, Green Irene is here to help you figure out simple steps that you can take to help your office significantly reduce paper use. You can learn more by signing up for an Ask Green Irene membership. By becoming a member, you’ll have access to a wealth of green knowledge, including specific things you can do to substantially reduce paper waste. So, what are you waiting for? Ask Green Irene today!
Jim Armbrust, Green Irene Eco-Consultant in Harrisburg, PA
717-215-4030
