Redefine News

With today's climate change concerns, the need for paper efficiency is high, a common with paper being not only the destruction of woodland for it but also the landfill space it takes up. Even though many people do actively recycle their paper, there is a significant amount that do not, and a certain amount of the recycled paper still ends up in a fill anyway.

Furthermore, recycling in itself, with the pulping, bleaching and production process, requires a large amount of energy which is almost as damaging as the landfills. Therefore the battle lies with minimizing paper usage before the document is even discarded in the bin; recycling still remains a very important practice but perhaps focus should turn to cutting down the amount of paper being used in the first place.

Paper efficiency is the task of being aware of how much paper is needed to perform a specific task, the main premise being to complete the same task but using little if any paper at all. One of the main tools for paper efficiency is a duplex printing machine; by printing on both sides of a piece of paper you can still attain the same information but on half the amount of the paper. Further to this you can shrink the size of the document to an A5 size and have two, what would ordinarily be A4 documents, onto one side. Doing this will half the amount of paper used again.

When purchasing paper opt for recycled or paper with minimal thickness, as less fiber is needed to produce the paper therefore more of it is produced overall.

Document scanning is also very useful for reducing a company’s paper waste. Scanning all documentation onto a computer system dramatically decreases the amount of paper waste and allows for easier access and security to important information with search and passwords being enabled.

One of the most efficient means of reducing paper usage is with the aid of a computer. When receiving an email avoids printing it out, if your company sends out invoices choose to do so via email similarly with receipts. Try to keep all documentation on a digital format to reduce the amount of paper used in the daily business day. Rules and laws are relaxing with regards to digital documents; it is now okay to store important documents in a digital format and a digital signature can now be accepted as legal authorization.

Taking these small steps can certainly help paper efficiency and contribute towards increasing sustainability.