How Changing Your Printing Habits Helps the Environment

Logging, harmful emissions and chemicals are just a few of the ways your office’s printing negatively impacts the environment. Here are a five ways to change for the better:

1. Go digital
Did you know that 1 tonne of office paper emits the equivalent of 6.3 tonnes of CO2 in its entire life cycle?* There are obvious environmental perks to a paperless office, so why not distribute all documents electronically and implement a strict print policy that encourages saving files digitally instead of printing everything out?

2. Choose eco-conscious paper 
Brands such as Portucel produces paper products that are biodegradable, recyclable and made from naturally renewable resources, such as the evergreen Eucalyptus globulus tree, while HP and MultiCopy offer FSC or PEFC certified office paper.

3. Print on both sides
Approximately 18 trees are cut down for every 10 employees per year. To save paper, set photocopiers and printers to default to single copies and print double-sided.

4. Buy eco-friendly ink cartridges
It also makes sense to buy sustainable ink cartridges, from brands such as HP, which has a 25-year history of recycling with over 682 million ink cartridges recycled to date. Today, over 80% of Original HP ink cartridges and 100% of Original HP Toner cartridges contain recycled content.

5. Recycle all used printed materials
Recycling schemes for a wide range of printed materials mean the usage trail doesn’t have to end in your office. If security is a concern, pass sensitive or confidential documents through a shredder prior to recycling.

*Counsell, T. and Allwood, J. Reducing climate change gas emissions by cutting out stages in the life cycle of office paper. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 49 (2007) 340-352.