Pointless printouts lay waste to profit

Jo Adetunji, The Guardian 5 Aug 08;

British office workers waste up to 120bn pieces of paper every year, costing businesses as much as 10% of their turnover, according to Envirowise, a government-funded programme that offers advice on sustainability to businesses.

The organisation has identified five types of print junkie, including "old school" printers who feel they cannot deal with email requests without printing a hard copy, and "competitive" printers who believe the more paper they have on their desks the more important they look.

"Trigger happy" staff who fail to check the number of pages in lengthy documents not only cause queues of frustrated colleagues at the printer but also contribute to the failure of the "paperless office" dream and are costing companies dear.

"Unnecessary printing of emails, multiple copies, single-sided printing and the sending of massive documents to the printer which are unlikely to be read are just some of the regular scenarios lived out by businesses every day," said Mary Leonard, director at Envirowise. "Most offices will find they can reduce waste costs by around 20% through simple no- or low-cost actions. Measures such as double-sided or multiple-page printing and recycling instead of paying for disposal can really help.

"4% is an average but we've found some manufacturing companies can save as much as 10% of their turnover."

A typical office worker prints 22 pages of paper every day, according to the organisation, many of which may be documents and messages that do not need to be printed out and are needlessly adding to mountains of waste.