Ecocentricism

Don’t Print This Blog Post!—the losing fight for paper conservation.

By Eben Harrell | August 18, 2010 | +

Please don’t print this blog post! Ach, who am I kidding, paper conservation is a losing battle.  Don’t believe me? Check out this survey of 1000 employees in the UK conducted by consultancy firm Loudhouse on behalf of Japenese manufacturing giant Kyocera. Here’s the most pertinent part of the executive summary:

Employers are right to be concerned about their employees’ entrenched printing habits. Despite the much-trumpeted rise of tablet/ mobile computing, and the ever-present rumour of the impending paperless office, office workers are printing as much as ever, with no signs of an imminent change. 40% continue to describe themselves as ‘paper people’ and a similar amount (39%) admit they could do more to reduce their printing.
In the last 12 months, little more than a fifth (22%) of office workers claim to have reduced their printing. 37% have actually increased the amount of printing they do, and 40% have made no change. The net result of this is that the average office worker prints as many as 10,000 sheets of paper in a year (45 per day). Of these, around 6,800 sheets can be considered as wasted or unnecessary. There is a clear disconnect between employees apparent environmental concern and their unwillingness to make changes in their printing behaviour….
Printing policy in most organisations tends to be either absent, or leaning towards ‘advice’ rather than regulation. 46% of companies have ‘loose guidelines relating to printing’ in place, against only 24% who have a formal written policy.

The average UK office worker prints 45 pages per day? That’s an incredible statistic, isn’t it? The report found that of the 6,800 paper sheets wasted by an employee in the average year, around 2,100 can be attributed to printing single-sided rather than double-sided. Food for thought. So please folks, save some trees, help slow climate change. Don’t print this blog post (and if you must, do so on double-sided paper).

Related Topics: Paper, printing, Business, Conservation, Ecocentricism

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  • http://abizia7.wordpress.com abizia7

    Dear Friends,
    We being so developed in this generation, still we are unable to stop the bleeding the earths beautiful nature like trees, it other words it like raping the world which is an orphan now. orphan can be used as a best word for our dear earth cause no one cares about the open sin and rape happening to our wrold in broad day lite. we can expect any UN resolution on this to stop, cause i am afraid that also to take up an issue with the UN it will eat my earths blood as project reports facts and other paper materials, i request you to please dont print or follow any procedure to take up with high authorities about this. We as a human being must help our orphaned earth to grow herself with less harm and minimize the use of paper in due course to make it work.
    No matter who we are but each one has an heart which knows whats rite and whats wrong, whats gud whats bad. so please help ourself together we can to save the earth.
    It gives be immense pleasure when i see a small new leaf grows out on my little plant in my window. it gradullay takes its time to see the world like a small new born baby, and i cherish such moments silently like a fool, but i love it the fool i am for it. Patience, wait and endurance it shows to come up to become something big.
    But it saddens me cause as i said its orphan now and anytime it will be taken away from its position and used for making some silly worldy things. Please save this orphan and dont print this blog and just read it pass it to your friends who can atleast save few leaves in the world today by now printing it.
    Thanks take care and lets hope we can.

  • http://abizia7.wordpress.com abizia7

    Dear Friends,
    We being so developed in this generation, still we are unable to stop the bleeding the earths beautiful nature like trees, it other words it like raping the world which is an orphan now. orphan can be used as a best word for our dear earth cause no one cares about the open sin and rape happening to our wrold in broad day lite. we can expect any UN resolution on this to stop, cause i am afraid that also to take up an issue with the UN it will eat my earths blood as project reports facts and other paper materials, i request you to please dont print or follow any procedure to take up with high authorities about this. We as a human being must help our orphaned earth to grow herself with less harm and minimize the use of paper in due course to make it work.
    No matter who we are but each one has an heart which knows whats rite and whats wrong, whats gud whats bad. so please help ourself together we can to save the earth.
    It gives be immense pleasure when i see a small new leaf grows out on my little plant in my window. it gradullay takes its time to see the world like a small new born baby, and i cherish such moments silently like a fool, but i love it the fool i am for it. Patience, wait and endurance it shows to come up to become something big.
    But it saddens me cause as i said its orphan now and anytime it will be taken away from its position and used for making some silly worldy things. Please save this orphan and dont print this blog and just read it pass it to your friends who can atleast save few leaves in the world today by now printing it.
    Thanks take care and lets hope we can.
    abizia7
    August 18, 2010
    at 8:53 pm
    Reply to this comment

  • danielatlanta

    This is just one more example of the new reality we humans have yet to understand, namely, that the battle for the world’s environment was lost ten to twenty years ago. We had an opportunity at some point back then to begin to change our way of life, which is based on the erroneous assumption that we can have more things for more people forever. Now, it’s probably too late to reverse our bad habits. From this point on, Nature will diminish as manmade substitutes continue to increase on Earth.

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