Are You Watching Your Waste Line?

Most of us working in office settings have some sort of a “number line” that drives our daily duties. Maybe it’s your sales for the month…the number of cases you’ve handled this week…the number of A/Rs you’ve closed…the number of widgets you’ve shipped. But here’s a number line that I think too many people ignore, yet we all contribute to it: our waste line.

I’m not writing about plumbing here, that’s another type of waste line. I’m writing about what an office consumes and then discards as waste. And some of the biggest contributors to this waste line are office paper and the resources consumed by printers and copiers.

Have you ever considered the real cost of not only producing, buying and then using that paper, but also the cost of removing it? According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a typical office disposes of about 350 pounds of wastepaper per employee per year (source: NRDC.com, Greening Advisor: Reducing Paper Use). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified office printing as one of three main areas in a typical company that has the greatest potential for reducing waste (source: EPA WasteWise: Where are the Biggest Cost Savings?) If we start by looking at your office paper recycling bins we can begin to address the need to improve the habits and inefficient processes that fill them up.

So how can you put your paper waste line on a diet? Like most diets, it’s pretty easy to start, but tougher to stick with it. You have probably already initiated some paper saving efforts (‘Think before you print’ signs and email footers…signs posted to remember to recycle office paper…asking people to remember to print two-sided…and so on). These are great, but (in my opinion) about as efficient as putting a note on the cookie jar asking if you’re SURE you want a cookie…the problem is the cookie is there waiting for you, and a note isn’t really going to foster better behaviors.

We believe paper saving software is one of the best ways to commit to a waste line reduction program. Paper saving software allows offices to change printing behaviors in incremental steps to allow users to reap the benefits of lower paper use without radically changing their focus on the “number lines” vital to their day-to-day activities. Paper saving software automates paper saving processes and removes the burden from the user to think about printing less. This saves money, saves time and reduces the amount of waste produced by your office. We have thousands of users throughout the world who are controlling their waste lines with our software.

How can you get started? Contact us to talk about your printing and copying habits and needs. We’ll analyze your printing requirements and assess how paper saving software can reduce your paper use. We’ll show you real dollar saving numbers and let you prove the viability of our software with our metrics collection and reporting system.

We make it really easy to start reducing your waste line - what is stopping you from starting?