If you are trying to make last-minute changes to a presentation that is past due or get a report to your impatient boss, the last thing you need to be worrying about is how much paper or ink you are using while printing. But before pressing the “print” button, make sure to consider the following:
• The average worker in the U.S. prints 10,000 pages per year, with over 1,400 being wasted.
• Together, all workers in the U.S. use more than eight million tons of office paper annually, which equates to 178 million trees.
• Producing a ton of office paper requires the energy it takes to power a home for 10 months.
• Over 350 million ink cartridges are sent to landfills each year, with each one taking 450 years to fully decompose.
When you conserve ink and paper by using an efficient printing process, it is good for the environment and will help a business save money. The good news is that printing habits don’t have to be drastically changed to be more resourceful as there are small steps that can go a long way in minimizing your office footprint.
1. Purchase and Use an Energy-Efficient Printer
The printer in your office may not seem like a huge energy user; however, when you multiply this by an entire office, with multiple printers, the energy use becomes significant. One of the most effective ways to reduce your printer consumption is to purchase one that is designed to be energy efficient.
The majority of energy-efficient printers will help you reduce energy consumption, prevent paper waste and help you cut costs. It is best to search for a printer that has an Energy Star label, which means that the particular printer has met the requirements set for energy efficiency by the U.S. government.
2. Recycle and Reuse
Don’t purchase new toner and ink cartridges every time you run out. These will just go to the landfill and take hundreds of years to decompose. By purchasing recycled toner cartridges, as well as remanufactured ink, you can keep them out of landfills. You can even opt to refill your existing ink cartridges.
You can also recycle paper. If something is only printed on a little, or if the back of a page is still good, consider using it for unimportant print jobs. Always purchase recycled print paper from the store, as well.
3. Conserve Ink
Unless you are printing something for a client, or that absolutely has to be the highest quality, use the draft setting on your printer. This will use less ink and print more quickly. Also, you don’t have to print everything in color, as color ink is much more expensive than black ink.
Choose fonts carefully too. The most ink-friendly font is called Ecofont, and it conserves ink by omitting part of each of the letters, without affecting readability.
4. Use Paper Wisely
Rather than just using one side of the paper, use the double-sided setting on your printer. You can also use all the space on a sheet by reducing your margins in the page setup menu. Just by reducing margins from one inch to half of an inch you can cut several pages from a large document.
5. Think Carefully Before Hitting ‘Print’
If you don’t absolutely have to print something, then don’t. If possible, convert your documents to PDF form and then email them. You can also save documents on a hard drive, rather than printing them. Some of the biggest paper wasters are web pages, so be careful when printing something offline.
As you can see, there are several ways you can save both paper and ink, along with energy when printing. To learn more, contact the knowledgeable staff at Monster Technology.