10 Tips for Staying Waste-Free at Work

Tip: Use technical tools to reduce your use of paper. Photo: Shutterstock

5. Reduce paper use

The average office worker in the U.S. uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. That’s 4 million tons of copy paper used annually – leaving plenty of room to reduce paper use and shrink your office footprint.

Avoid using paper by emailing important documents to coworkers and clients, and using presentations rather than handouts at weekly staff meetings. To further reduce paper consumption, only print documents when you absolutely have to, and try to use both sides of the paper whenever possible.

For paper you do use, always remember to recycle. The EPA estimates that if an office building of 7,000 workers recycled all of its paper for a year, it would amount to taking 400 cars off the road.

Get Informed: How to Start an Office Recycling Program