Office paper represents roughly 50% of the waste bill from the average business – US offices print about 12.1 trillion sheets of paper annually, contributing about 9% of carbon dioxide emissions.
Here are 5 tips to reduce paper waste:
Welcome to Part I in a series we’re featuring on greening the “Big Day” (as they call it.)
As a recently engaged woman this subject is becoming high on my radar. My experience thus far isn’t unique. I want the day to be exceptional, fun, beautiful and authentic to my fiance and I. But… I’d like to do what I can to keep the waste that can come along with a wedding at a minimum!
One of the steps that comes fairly early in the process is the traditional save the dates. You book your venue, hem and haw over your guest list, point out that you have no clue who 10% of the people on your significant other’s lists are and voila it’s time to get crackin.
So, how can you make this part of the process greener?
Need to cut some excess from your life?
While you may be familiar with Beth’s Paper Peeve and my co-workers apologize each time they print a doc… but no longer fear! An easy gesture such as shrinking your margins (I recommend .5″ on all sides ) on computer printouts will save your printer (and co-workers) pages.
Word 2007 even has an easy default:
- Go to the “Page Layout” ribbon
- Click the “Margins” dropdown
- Select “Narrow”.
You’ll be amazed at how much more info you can fit & trees you can save! (One study by Change the Margins says if you change your margins to .75″ on all sides, you can reduce paper by 4.75% – saving 1.14 trees per ton of paper. If the whole US changed their margins, we’d save 6,156,000 trees every year just by a small change.)
