When it comes to reducing your workplace’s environmental impact, recycling is just one part of the whole picture. Conserving resources, preventing pollution and reducing waste is just as important as recycling your used products. Copy paper is easily the most common type of office waste paper. Up to 50% of the solid waste of many businesses is comprised of discarded paper.
How can your office reduce paper waste? Here are some simple suggestions that can have a huge impact not only on the environment, but also your bottom line.
Reduce your paper use
Try to use both sides of a sheet of paper when printing, copying, writing and drawing. This can save you up to 50% on your paper costs!
Reuse paper already printed on one side by manually feeding it into copiers and printers. This is great for internal documents like drafts and short-lived items such as meeting agendas or temporary signs.
Use E-mail to share documents and ideas. Try to print only the e-mails you need to have a hard copy of. This goes for Internet documents as well. Bookmark or save webpages on your hard drive and pull it up when needed.
Minimize misprints by posting a diagram near your printer or copy machine showing how to load special paper like letterhead so it will be printed correctly the first time.
Practice efficient copying — use the size reduction option offered on many copiers. Reducing the size can transform two pages of a book or periodical to one standard sheet.
Use reusable inter- and intra-office envelopes.
Reuse old paper for notepads. You can cut it into custom sizes and bind it with a staple.
Print greener
Again, print on both sides of the paper, and reduce the width of margins and font sizes in order to reduce waste and save both resources and money.
Purchase paper with pulp that is brightened without the use of chlorine. Chlorine bleaching creates a toxic waste by-product called dioxin. By using alternatives to chlorine-bleached papers, you help to encourage paper mills to move away from pollution causing production practices. Paper labeled totally chlorine-free (TCF) or processed chlorine-free (PCF) indicates that the mill did not use chlorine compounds to brighten the paper.
Purchase post-consumer recycled content papers. By doing so you reduce the number of trees that are cut for the use of new paper and it helps expand the recycling market, assuring recycling programs stay viable and effective.