Blog

The office environment has traditionally been one where paper has been used extensively for writing reports, memos, reminders, to do lists, and an awful lot of other official stuff. This means that paper is used in rather large quantities even by the smallest of offices.

Some astonishing facts about paper use

Just 10% of the world’s population (US and Western Europe) uses more than 50% of the world’s paper. Paper consumption in the US and Europe is six times that of the world average. In fact, an average office worker in the US uses close to 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. This amounts to approximately 4 million tons of copy paper being used annually. Another shocking fact is that junk mail (think unsolicited paper catalogs) and packaging constitutes a large portion of the total paper going into the landfills.

What you can do to save paper in office

Though there is still a long way to go, people have become more environmentally conscious in the past few decades. There has been a conscious effort to save paper in office environments as a way of cutting down on costs related to purchasing paper as well as doing something good for the planet’s ecosystem.

1. One of the best ways to save paper in office buildings is to use e-mail and telephones as much as possible instead of letters or other paper correspondence. Of course, there will be situations when you’ll have to send actual letters but whenever there is an option to go digital, do it.
2. Another way to save paper is to print documents only when necessary. Today, we have a plethora of electronic gadgets that help us to carry documents in digital format. You have CDs, DVDs, flash drives, and even your smartphone or iPod to store documents.
3. Print on both sides of the paper and try to use recycled paper as much as possible. Place recycle bins (with a recycle logo) at appropriate locations in your office. This would be your contribution to help sustain the recycling industry.
4. Stop writing your daily to-do lists on paper. You can use software to create elaborate to-do lists and sticky notes. If you are using a Mac, iPhone or iPod, you can use the Calendar or Notes application to accomplish this task. If you are on a PC, use Spreadsheet, Notepad or Word to do so.

How a page flip catalog helps save paper in office

Offices tend to print out lots of instruction manuals, brochures, reports etc. for dissemination to the employees, resulting in an awful lot of paper use, not to mention the cost of printing involved. This is a scenario where a page flip catalog, also known as a flash catalog, comes to the rescue.

All office manuals, brochures and reports can be converted to a digital page flip version, which offers the look and feel of a paper publication but without the use of paper. The flash catalog can be stored on the office Intranet so employees may easily view it. It can even be set up on the company’s website so your clients and others concerned may view it on the Internet.

Please help to spread the word and reduce paper consumption by linking to this article from your website. Want to share any tips of your own on how to save paper in offices? Feel free to put 'em in the comments section below!

You are probably asking yourself, why should I save paper? After all, it is darn cheap. Well, you will be surprised to know that paper accounts for over 50% of all trash. Saving paper reduces landfill space, energy consumption, and air pollution caused by paper manufacturing. Most importantly, saving paper reduces the need to cut down trees. And it is a well known fact that trees help preserve the environment by removing green house gases (heat-trapping gases) like carbon-dioxide, methane and ozone.

More than 40 percent of the Earth’s oxygen is produced by the rain forests. However, rain forests are being destroyed at an alarming rate. A forest area, the size of 20 football or soccer fields is lost every minute. If deforestation persists at this rate, we could lose the entire forest cover in less than 100 years. Logging occurs for many reasons, the primary reason being paper production. In the US alone, over 8 million tons of trees are cut down each year to produce billions of paper catalogs, most of which have no recycled content.

One of the significant, but often overlooked, benefits of our page flip solution is that it is eco-friendly. Converting paper catalogs to page flip catalogs has a positive effect on the environment. Page flip offers the familiar look and feel of a print publication, but it need never be printed. Therefore, it helps save paper and our precious rain forests.