The Impact of Office Paper Waste and How you Can Curb it

As a print and document management company, we believe in fulfilling every good purpose through the actions and services we conduct with our clients, staff and the communities in which we live. In helping to reduce the paper waste that can be found in your office, this is a good purpose we can strive to fulfill.

Waste by the Numbers

Over 67 Million tons of paper is generated each year in the US, which can be averaged to over a 1lb of paper waste per person, per day. To put that into perspective, that’s around 250 sheets of paper every workweek. With such a large amount of waste, we know we can find ways to reduce our weekly usage in the office.

Paper Waste Impacts Our Planet & Our Wallet

Worldwide, 3.5 out of 10 trees get harvested and processed for making the paper products we use daily. This reduction impacts the 80,000 acres of forest that disappear every day. Our paper consumption and waste in the workplace attribute to the rate and help it steadily climb over time. However, it’s not just the environmental impact paper waste has – it’s your wallet as well. An average of 17% of all items printed in the workplace are considered waste and the average office printed document was the lifespan of 24 hours.

5 Simple Steps to Reduce Paper Waste in Your Office

1. Think before you print.

Do you really need a printed copy of that memo? Do you need a hard copy of that revised report draft? It’s a simple statement to make, but hard to implement every time you hit CTRL + P. Keep this in the back of your mind can make a difference to the office paper bin.

2. Provide office training and paper waste awareness.

Your office coworkers and staff have 100 different things to tend to during the work. Print utilization gets overlooked. Implement a quick & simple training session periodically to educate staff on the office best practices for reducing paper & toner consumption- no PowerPoint presentation needed.

3. Centralize your printers and copiers.

We’ve all seen it, that rouge printer connected to one desk. It may save a few trips down the hall, but it’s not resource efficient and nor controlled in any central management system. Grouping your printers together (1 per 10 employees is a common rate) can bring that waste from feral printers under control.

4. Reduce uncollected paper with pull printing.

Does your office printer have sacks upon stacks of printed paper on top of it? Do you see coworkers printing documents, only to scan them right back in on a all too frequent basis? Implementing a pull printing setting on your printers can help reduce uncollected and wasteful print jobs. Pull printing is a feature that holds the print job in queue until the user is at the machine and ready to accept the documents. It is a common feature found on most office printers and is usually a breeze to setup.

5. Set default printing to both sides.

Long live the duplex setting! Printing from both sides as a default setting can be a simple step to keep paper usage down at the workplace. Most printers can have this featured enabled, and if not a print management solution like Smart Tracker makes it easy to implement across a multi office environment. Duplexing a print job is great for high size

A Smart Start

Reducing your offices’ paper waste has a direct impact on your environment, as well as your wallet. No matter how large or small your business, there are ways to make a difference in the amount of waste you produce. These simple steps could help move the needle more than you think. If you are looking for ways to save cost and maybe some sanity, reach out to us today to plan a smart start to managing your office printing.