To Print or Not to Print

by Zahra Petri

One tree provides approximately 16.67 reams of paper, about 8,333 sheets of paper. Although that may seem like a lot of paper, an office of approximately ten people uses one ream of paper a week, which is slightly less than average. That’s about 26,000 pieces of paper a year in just this one office. Imagine how much paper is used in a company with 1,000 or 100,000 employees? Many more trees than I’d like to think about.

You may be wondering what can be done to remedy this issue and I’d like to share with you a few ways that my office has found helpful. Instead of printing every email, research item, or document, consider organizing the data you would like to save into a system of files. Our company’s Getting the EDGE course teaches you how to manage and organize your daily routines and processes. It helps bring balance and structure when you feel consumed by chaos. Imagine seeing an empty email inbox instead of hundreds or maybe thousands of emails in your inbox. Would your stress level be greatly reduced? Imagine actually getting to the projects and tasks you keep putting off because you just can’t find the time. All this is possible with the EDGE system by replacing old, ineffective habits with new action related habits.

Another way your office or home can help reduce paper waste is remembering to print on both sides and to recycle. If you do not know whether your office has the option to recycle, ask your office manager or the building managers, you may be the one to make the change for your whole office. When you clean your office space and recycle the unneeded papers, you are giving back to the environment and helping keep a more organized work space.

You may think that as just one individual you cannot make a difference, but you can. All it takes is one person to form these best practices into habits and share them with friends or colleagues. Before you know it, everyone is making a difference.