Comments on: A Cutback the Whole Office Can Get Behind

By: Nancy

Nancy — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:16:53 +0000

I work for a large utility company so there is a lot of printing going on. I use my ‘banner sheet’ as scrap paper at work or take it home and use the other side for my printer at home. Now what I have done is remove the banner sheet and set my properties to ‘secure print’. Now I just go to the printer and release my prints. Everything is there – with no banner sheets. I feel that I save a lot of paper that way and have tried to convince some others to do the same.

By: DIANA

DIANA — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:31:45 +0000

Speaking of paper usage, I have instituted the process in our office of recycling all that “fax spam”, etc. If it’s printed on one side, and we don’t need to save it, I use it as a two-sided copy. If it’s not going out to the customer and staying in office, just use the other side! We have cut down on our paper ordering considerably.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:41:33 +0000

Good article, but in addition to recycling and reducing, there should be a mention of re-using here! You can use the back of a printout as scrap paper when you’re brainstorming, making up your to-do list, or taking notes on a call. Or if it’s non-sensitive, non-confidential information, you can donate paper printed on one side to a local daycare – they are always in need of scrap paper for coloring on.

Also, in terms of reduction, you can set up certain types of printers to print on both sides of the page, reducing your paper consumption by half.

By: Recycle Raccoon

Recycle Raccoon — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:30:51 +0000

A tip that has helped out our office is that we have a defalut print tray set up for draft copies. We fill this tray with paper that has already been printed on one side. Implementing this, along with many of the other tips you mentioned (although the ecoprint is a new one to me!), our department reduced its paper use from 1120 reams of paper used per year to 964 reams. The average cost of a ream of paper is $62 when you include the purchase price, printing, mailing, storage, and disposal. Using this figure we have saved $17,174 in the past 2 years! More information, including information on how we track usage, is available at our website: http://www.waukeshacounty.gov/page.aspx?SetupMetaId=19474&id=23650

By: Ink Guides

Ink Guides — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Thanks for the article Steve!

For readers interested in the subject I can also recommend the green printing article series over at the TreeHugger website. Lot’s of interesting info there!

By: Melanie Turner

Melanie Turner — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:02:12 +0000

I can’t believe (or rather, I can sadly believe) that 1 trillion sheets are tossed out a day after printing! I work from home, so I have everything saved on my laptop & sure, it takes a while to find a particular file sometimes, but it’s so much better than printing out a sheet here or there to just toss later in the day. I have an efax and LOVE it! Because the “fax” is converted to a pdf file, I love that I can save it, look at it later and not risk losing it, which is a real threat in a house where my toddler loves to take anything paper off my desk and do Lord knows what with it!