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PAPER

Save Trees

Apr 07, 2012

Why you should save paper?

When we save paper, we reduce the need to cut down trees. Paper accounts for more than half of all municipal solid waste. Anything we can do to save paper will help reduce the amount of trash going into landfills, and it will also reduce energy use and pollution associated with manufacturing, transporting, and recycling new paper products. Whether you have a home office or work in an office with others, you can save paper by implementing some minor changes in your work habits.

Tips to Save Paper:

Make every effort for the “Paperless Office“: Computers seem to have actually increased our use of paper. But we can still do as much as possible on-screen, making printouts and copies only when truly necessary. For instance, managing your emails electronically, not printing out a copy of every email.

Review Drafts Using On-Screen Tricks: People often get “screen blind” after looking at a document on the screen for a long time. This allows errors to gone unnoticed. An on-screen trick that will allow you to review your document from a seemingly different perspective, is to temporarily change the font size by using zoom to higher percentage. This makes the words easier to read and shifts things around a bit, giving your eyes a new view of the document.

Print Pages, Passages, or Sections: Sometimes you may need a printout of only part of a large or medium-sized document. Perhaps you need to review one or two pages of a many-page document, or maybe you need just one section of a large spreadsheet. You may find the printing options in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint helpful in your quest to review your work but also minimize the number of pages you print.

Use Double-Sided or Print – Two Up: Anytime you have to print or make photocopies, always try to do so double-sided. Most copiers today have features that will allow “one-sided to two-sided” copying, and many laser printers allow “duplex” printing. Check with your office geek if you’re not sure.

Use Obsolete Printouts for Note Paper: For paper that still has a blank side but isn’t pristine enough to go into the printer for one last round of printing, you can still get more out of it by using it for taking notes at meetings and whatnot. A clipboard is a convenient way to create a scrap-paper notepad. If you’re a hard-core paper saver, you can cut old printouts into fourths or sixths and make a stack of them to use for writing notes and phone messages. Both methods will reduce the number of new note pads and message pads you need to buy.

Paper’s Final Resting Place: Paper’s proper final resting place is the recycle bin, of course. This doesn’t really reduce the amount of paper you personally use, but it does reduce the number of trees that get cut down since the paper you recycle will be turned into other paper products.