If you work in an office you will know how much paper gets wasted. Whether the printer has got stuck or if you printed the wrong document, statistics show that on average 50 sheets of paper are wasted by a single office worker due to incorrect printing.
Offices in the UK produce tons of pollution, it isn’t just bad for the environment, but for your company too. We all need to clean up our act a little as the mess we are causing is contributing to global warming. Photocopiers, old CD’s, computers and old toners can cause serious issues to the environment but if disposed of correctly and the right amount ordered this can also save you money.
An environmentalist company called Envirowise has conducted a study that found approximately 70% of office waste is recyclable but only 7.5 % reaches the recycling facility. 24% of total UK waste is generated in UK offices, 80.6 tons of printing and writing paper enters the waste stream each year. Recycling at least one tonne of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water, at the current state Britain has the lowest recycling rate in Europe only recycling 17.7% of 335 million tonnes of solid waste produced.
Print Wisely
When you are printing next time, make sure that you set your printer to print both sides, this will cut your paper consumption in half. Always make sure that you try to use unwanted paper in a different way, for example you can shred used paper and use it for packing boxes for shipping. When you are about to print your document reduce the margins in the printer settings so that you can print a greater volume of words. When you are at your desk avoid printing unnecessarily instead send out emails or instant messages to communicate with your team. When a new employee starts make sure that you give them an electronic version of the handbook, in most cases people lose their handbooks within a few weeks. There are many scanning companies that can change your office to paperless which in the long term help the environment.
Printing toners can be very pricey and harmful to the environment if they have not been disposed of correctly. Not printing in colour is economical since this generally uses more ink than simple black and white. When picking a toner check the label to see whether it is a recycled toner, Ricoh offers a recycling plan that will refill the old toner to reduce the toners ending up in the landfill sites. Printing in low quality for general admin will also reduce the toner usage; it is fine to use good quality printing for clients or important companies but wouldn’t need it for the office.