Print ONLY when you cannot make do without a paper copy.
Welcome to Week 15 of the 50 Ways to Reduce Your Waste Line. Last week, we asked you to minimize printed documents at meetings. This week, we invite you to think of more ways to avoid printing documents and use electronic copies whenever possible.
A Few Things You Can Do
When the personal computer was first created, it was intended to bring about the end of manual paperwork. It has turned out that computers facilitate the mass production of various paper-based media at a seemingly endless rate! Newspapers, flyers, brochures, sales literature… not to mention business-related paper documents such as floor plans, annual reports, utility bills, bank statements, claims forms, etc. Despite the best of intentions, it is fairly safe to say that the proliferation of paper-based media is at an all-time high.
To help reduce the amount of paper that you “push into the environment” during a typical day, why not take a moment to utilize the various tools and productivity apps at your disposal? Examples include the “Track Changes” or “Insert Comment” features in Microsoft Office applications (instead of printing and physically marking up paper documents) or using MS OneNote to create electronic “sticky notes” as ideas pop into your head.
As well, instead of storing your files as paper documents in folders in your office cabinet, a great way to store your files is to take advantage of free cloud-based storage solutions, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive and College network drives, etc. One main advantage is that the online files are easy to retrieve and you can get access to these storage spaces in different work locations.
The use of a projector negates the need for paper documents in most meetings. And if the projector is used with a SMART Board, suggestions for revisions can be electronically recorded. In the absence of a SMART Board, mobile apps such as Adobe Scan can capture whiteboard notes and/or markups, and save them as .pdf documents for later use.
While this doesn’t relate to printing in the office, there are also ways that you can help reduce the amount of paper that you “pull from external sources” as well. For example, consider switching paper-based subscriptions to electronic subscriptions for your favorite newspapers and magazines. You can also swap out your flyer-laden community newspaper in place of the newspaper’s app, and consider getting your flyers and coupons electronically as well, through apps such as Flipp or Checkout 51 (these come with the added bonus of being searchable as well, which can be helpful when looking for a specific gift around this time of year!)
Some Facts
How many trees will be cut for making paper? Below is some quick info from Conservatree:
- It takes 4 tons of wood (or approximately 24 trees) to make 1 ton of 100% non-recycled printing and office paper
- It takes 12 trees to make 1 ton of 100% non-recycled newsprint
- One tree makes 16.67 reams of copy paper, or 8,333.3 sheets
- One ream (500 sheets) uses 6 percent of a tree
Now you know!
Join a Sheridan Green Team
The 50 Ways to Reduce Your Waste Line is an initiative created and supported by the Green Teams. Would you like to get involved and help your campus to be more sustainable? You can join a Green Team! Our next monthly meeting is scheduled on December 20. If you are interested, feel free to contact the Chair of the Green Team at each campus as below:
Davis – Melissa Friesen (melissa.friesen1@sheridancollege.ca)
HMC – Jacinda Frazer (jacinda.frazer@sheridancollege.ca)
Trafalgar – Wai Chu Cheng (waichu.cheng@sheridancollege.ca)
