Saving Printer Paper
You have an awesome printer. The options were perfect, the ink or toner is cheap. You print as much as you can. But, what is missing? Dealing with the paper you use. Being a responsible printer owner includes management of your paper use. Most people believe that since they can print out something at home, they can print it and should print it as often as they require. Yet, with the high cost of ink and paper being incredibly cheap, there are a few things one must think about in order to save printer paper.
To give you an idea of what I mean, the University of Delaware has some simple solutions for their saving of paper in their computer labs and print stations.
We want to make it an easy choice for you to print conservatively, thus decreasing the impact of excessive paper use on the environment. Here are some interesting facts about how much paper is actually used:
* 2.3 million sheets of paper makes a stack 766 feet tall and weighs 23,000 pounds.
* 0.3 million sheets of paper is equal to the amount of heat equivalent to what is produced by 23 tons coal or 4,600 gallons of fuel oil.Although printing is necessary, unfortunately a lot of waste is generated—on an average week in the Smith Hall computing site, 120 pounds of paper ends up in the recycling bins. That’s 12,000 sheets of paper per week—an equivalent of 600,000 sheets of paper per year, which equals approximately one quarter of the total (2.3 million sheets) printed per semester!
The home office might not print as much as a university, but it is still something printer users shouldn’t ignore.
Is it something you really need to print or do you only need a URL or some other small piece of information that you could write down?
Did you proofread what you are about to print, so you won’t need to reprint it because of typos?
Did you preview your printout using the application’s print preview feature to ensure its format is correct?
If you only need one page of a 10 page document or the first page of a 15 page web site, print only that one page.
When you take a look at your next printer, don’t forget to take paper use into account. Faster printers may print more, but it is not necessary to do so.