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Today's post is by executive editor Doug O'Neill.
I had an epiphany not long ago, and it goes something like this: "It's a right pain in the back when you DON'T go green." Just as global warming weighs heavily upon my brow each morning as I read the newspapers on the subway ride to work, I've become equally aware of the burden of excess paper weighing heavily upon my lower back as I schlep extra kilograms of paper products and documents in my briefcase and crammed into my backpack as I traipse about the city.Take one recent Thursday, for instance. Not only did I have to bring back to work a pile of manuscripts that I had taken home the night before but I was also loaded up with mountains of handouts for the students in my journalism class at Ryerson. Ouch, my lower-back issues flared up something fierce. And that got me thinking: how do I lighten my load? The answer is simple: print on double-sides. Excellent. That actually (A) lightened my load but also, and more importantly on the global scale, (B) reduced my paper usage by half. A no-brainer. So that got me thinking: How else can I cut down on paper use at home and at work?
Here's what I've come up with:
1. Letters to my kinfolk. Yes, I still have relatives who exist without email. No more will I use six pages when I can use three double-sided.
2. Need extra paper for jotting down rough notes during meetings? Why not reach into your blue box and grab a bundle of clean (coffee-stain-free) print-outs and use the clean side?
3. Notes to my cleaning lady. Alice and I have got into the habit of swapping notes. Mine read like, "Alice, could you attend to the dust balls under the bed?" Her reply: "Mr. Doug, I need a shovel to clean your bedroom. What would your mama think?" These exchanges used to play themselves out over clean sheets of lined paper. Now, however, I use the backs of envelopes, the backs of shopping lists, the backs of junk mail flyers.
4. Why print it at all? Adding a gentle, "Only print this document if absolutely necessary" to each and every report you email to staff will save you tons of money and paper.
5. The Paperless Office is something we can all strive for – even if we don't get there. For instance, you receive a 12-page update on a project but you're only interested in pages 6 and 7. So just print those two pages and take a pass on the rest.
6. Reuse paper in your printer. If you've printed on one side and the reverse is clean – use it again as fresh stock.
7. A recent invitation to a house-warming ate up two pages, one for the map, one for the directions plus phone number. Solution: use both sides of ONE sheet of paper. (And to think that 50-plus people received that invite. Hmmm, so 50 unnecessary sheets of paper were used.)
8. The kids need colouring and painting paper at home: Simple, each Friday as you leave the office, reach into the recycling bin and grab a buncle of used paper with info printed on one side only. Fax spam is good fodder for this. (Just make sure there are no company secrets printed on the one side.)
9. All those extra promotional sheets that come stuffed into your charge card and utility bills? Cut them and half and you've got an instant supply of sheets for shopping lists and note-pad paper for use in the home.
10. Agenda for your next community group meeting? Email it. Avoid printing it on several sheets of paper distributed to 20 people unless absolutely necessary.
11. One copy suits all. If you do need a paper copy of an agenda for a meeting or brainstorming session, why does everyone have to have his or her own copy? Let them read it in an paper-free format, such as email, and then bring JUST ONE copy to the meeting.
With a little forethought you could save a whole lot of paper – and a lot of wear and tear on your back.
How do you reduce your paper use?Today's code word: paper
