Reducing Paper Use

Saving paper means saving forests which we need to slow climate change. The Ancient Forest Friendly website, http://www.ancientforestfriendly.com/ , has the following guide to reducing paper use (http://www.ancientforestfriendly.com/paper-efficiency/home).

A Practical Guide to Increasing Paper Efficiencies

In this section you'll find practical ways to make your paper use much more efficient. Paper efficiency means you are acting smart about your environmental and financial resources. We ask this of our signatory companies, but individuals can practice paper efficiency as well.

The three R's of waste reduction are Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first ‘R' is the most resource efficient of them all.

At Home and Work

• read newspapers online, read magazines from the library or buy digital magazine subscriptions,
• have your name removed from catalogue mail lists,
• post a ‘no unaddressed mail' notice on your post box and don't print your emails.

And here are more tips for around the office:

Photocopiers

• Set photocopy machines to double-sided by default. Your photocopy technician can perform this simple service.
• Introduce codes for use of photocopiers. This will provide everyone with insights to their consumption by tracking the paper consumption of various departments. This is particularly helpful and motivating when working towards increasing efficiencies. Add a little incentive to your paper efficiency drive - set up inter-departmental competitions or annual targets for each department based on the previous quarter/year's consumption.
• Adjust photocopy machine for recycled paper to avoid any potential of copier jamming. Your photocopy technician can perform this simple service.
• When purchasing new printers and photocopy equipment, ensure they can easily print double sided.

Mail

• Wherever possible shift to electronic bills and online application forms. For clients who require hardcopies, print double sided bills and application forms.
• Reduce the basis weight of the paper - it will save postage costs.
• Where possible, reuse envelopes for correspondence. Use address labels to cover original information.
• Use inter-office envelopes which can be re-used multiple times.

Computers and the Paperless Office! Use your computer to reduce paper consumption not increase it!

General Office Use

• Reduce the basis weight of the paper used in the office and for promotional use. E.g. switch from a 60lb sheet for general office use to a 50 lb sheet.
• Post memos on a central bulletin board.
• For editing processes, have several people edit the same document using different colour ink and track changes.
• Use single sided waste paper for printing drafts.
• Maximize formatting by reducing font size and increasing margins.
• Buy 100% post consumer recycled copy paper. Many brands are available and they work well in today's machines.

Company Documents and Reports

• Reduce size of printed pieces by working with your designer and printer to try creative formatting to maximize use of parent sheets for printing.
• Post reports electronically.
• Reduce the basis weight of paper used.

Faxes

• Use fax stick it forms rather than cover sheet.
• Use plain paper faxes
• Program your machine to eliminate printed confirmation sheets
• Format fax carefully so that excessive pages are eliminated.

Re: Reducing Paper Use

These are excellent suggestions!  If everyone adopted these ideas imagine the impact it would have.  The ancient forests of this world are still underappreciated by the world at large.  They must be protected!

Izmet
www.izmetsdream.com

Re: Reducing Paper Use

As a professor, I have wrestled with reducing my personal paper consumption for some time.  As with any large institution, a university generates a lot of printed material.  One small effort was last semester, I had my students turn in assignments electronically and I gave them feedback/assessment electronically as well.  As it turns out, that was not as easy as I thought it would be.  While we do have web-based forums available for online classes (e.g., BlackBoard and WebCT), the real effort was in training myself to read something (and provide critical feedback) on the computer screen as opposed to on paper.  I had to very consciously re-train my brain (and my fingers) to “grade” in a very different way that I was used to.  I have to say that I really enjoyed taking a colored pen and drawing and commenting on a student's paper.  There was something very unique about giving personal notes and encouragement in my own handwriting, using symbols and arrows and such.  Therefore, most of my re-training consisted of learning parts of Microsoft Word that I had been previously unfamiliar with.  The track changing/editing/drawing functions were tools that I had never used before but have slowly become essential parts of my teaching practice.  So, what I learned (and not that radically novel, but useful for me to reflect upon) from this experience, is that the mental un-learning and re-learning of new and old tools is oftentimes a challenging part of being more environmentally conscious. 

Re: Reducing Paper Use

Thank you Inukshuk for breaking it down and giving examples.

I try to limit my printer usage, but If I need to print something out and doesn't really need to be in a clean sheet, I reuse already printed papers. I just flip it and use the clean (unused) side. I don't throw away papers turned in from previous semesters. There are the exceptional papers I like to keep. I use the clean side to do math exorcises.

I am sure you are familiar with the junk mail sent from credit companies (pre-approved etc.) By the way, as others have mentioned already in this pond, you can sign up to not get junk mail, especially from credit companies.

I like to shred the forms, but I use the clean (blank) sides of any papers I can get my hands on. I open up the envelope it was sent in and the envelope enclosed to send the application. I even use not the small-printed area, but  the blank sheets behind them ( from their Terms & Rights.)

Any mail I get, I basically take everything apart and use it to take notes or do whatever…

I get all of my news from online newspapers and have increased using ebooks.