How to turn your business from paper waste sinners to print-savvy saints
Have you rush-produced 10 copies of the wrong 50-page report or used high-grade paper for basic mono tasks simply because it’s the nearest thing to hand? Sent a single web page to print and ended up with the entire website?
When it comes to printing, we’ve all committed our fair share of sins. By following these simple office and employee housekeeping steps, you could help your company to save time and budget by reducing paper use, turning office printer sinners into waste-reducing, print-savvy saints.
- Think twice before you click ‘print’
It’s too easy to click the print button without fully considering whether you really need a hard copy of that document. The decision to click print should be carefully considered. Asking yourself whether you really need to print can save you time, but it will also save the company money and resources. You could ask yourself whether your desk really needs any more paper piled on it.
While there’s no getting around printing some documents, others might not necessarily need to be sent the printer. If you’re simply printing a document to review, it’s worth bearing in the mind the cost implications this will have and that you can just as easily review the document on your computer.
In the fast-paced world of business, we often find ourselves pushed for time. This can lead to reviewing or digesting information on the move. Again, instead of printing documents to read on your journey, it’s simpler to send them to your smartphone or tablet instead. This will also mean the documents are secure, eliminating the chances of the documents getting lost or falling into the wrong hands.
- Don’t let your relationship with paper become one-sided
Just like any story, there are two sides to a sheet of paper. It’s easy to forget this when sending a document to the printer is as simple as clicking a button. But just a few more clicks in the print menu can result in a significant reduction in paper usage.
By selecting duplex printing in your print settings, you’ll be getting twice as much mileage from a single sheet of paper. Duplex printing effectively means ‘printing on both sides’ or ‘2-sided printing’, so whether you’re printing a two page document or a twenty-two documents, you can half the amount of paper required, reducing the cost of each print job.
- Avoid third party consumables
Third party consumables such as ink cartridges and toners may be an attractive option to businesses when it comes to cutting costs, but these products are cheaper for a reason. Third party consumables simply aren’t manufactured to the same quality as genuine consumables developed by your printer’s manufacturer to work with your printer. As such, third party consumables won’t provide the same print quality.
Authentic consumables from your printer’s manufacturer are developed alongside the printer itself, meaning they have been engineered to deliver the best possible print quality from your device. Not only have third party products been proven to diminish print quality, they can often be defective, damaging your print hardware.
From a paper saving perspective, third party products can drive up paper usage through the need to reprint documents where the quality has been downgraded. Sticking with authentic consumables from your printer’s manufacturer will ensure the best possible print quality with every print job, keeping paper usage to a healthy minimum.
As individuals, we can all do our bit to help businesses save money and resources while reducing paper waste. But we should also ensure those around us are working to reduce to reduce their printing footprint too. By remembering and sharing these steps, you can your business from paper waste sinners to print-savvy saints.
