Remember the dream of a paperless society? One year I made a resolution to print only on the flip side of paper that had already been used. I'm proud to say I never opened a ream of paper in 2003. Of course, the printer I had went belly up and that added to the disposal stream but thats another story.
Many of you are might be printing less these days - whose got time to print stuff when all your time is spent reading and commenting on blogs? :). If you run - or are part of - an organization that "sure seems to go through a lot of paper" then here's one possible solution.
My pal, Tom Sowa, has a great blog called TXT. He wrote a story on greening up your printing habit.
No one has accurate data on how much paper is wasted by printers in the United States. One study by printer manufacturer Lexmark said the average U.S. office worker throws out or wastes 1,500 pages per year. Citigroup estimated each sheet of wasted printer paper costs 6 to 13 cents, depending on the amount of ink, toner and recycling effort a company spends to manage its paper flow.GreenPrint's Hayden Hamilton says:
We call what we’re developing environmental software - it’s a green evolution in how we use printers. What we’re doing is not really rocket science. This is an area that people haven’t associated with conservation or greenness. I don’t think the high tech industry as a whole has made this a part of their mission.
Here's their tutorial. It's about 4 minutes long. GreenPrint estimates, with widespread use, 20 million trees could be saved per year. Thats not even considering the saving for ink, toner and CO2.
Happy Friday!
6 comments:
Just thought you might want to check out this related link - Gmail paper
Yo Bruce - thanks for checking in! And for the link, too, too!
Bob,
Good post. My printer gets very little use these days. Mostly it sits quiet except when I use it for direct mail campaigns. And then it gets hot.
Lewis - thank you. Somehow I figured you for a guy who understands and lives green. A quiet printer is a happy printer :). And when its used to add to the coffers, it can afford to be hot!
Bob, what a thought-provoking post and link. I thought I was good about my printing, but methinks I can now be better.
If we all do just a "little bit" C.B. - we can change the world...thanks for easing up on your printer :)
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