Go Greener Tips

How many times have you unintentionally printed out extra pages? You know, the pages that are essentially blank with maybe a line or two of meaningless text at the top. Turns out, these extra printed pages are more than just an annoyance. They also waste a staggering amount of money, not to mention paper and ink.

Consider this: An estimated 17% of the pages we print are waste. We’d save about $17.4 billion a year in office printing costs if we eliminated all that waste, according to American Forests.  It would also save between 20 and 30 million trees.

So, what can you do?

Print preview. Sure, it takes an extra minute, but it’s the easiest way for most of us to avoid printing extra pages. You’ll save money (on paper and ink) and time (recycling and disposing of wasted paper).

Print management tools. Business owners and consumers who need some extra help can use software to help cut down on printing costs. Here are a couple of options:

GreenPrint searches your document and highlights pages that are considered waste, allows you to remove text or images from previewed pages, and gives you the option to create a PDF file that you can save on your computer instead of (or in addition to) printing out. You can also keep tabs on how much money you save per printing job or over time.

There are three versions of the software, starting with a free one for consumers who use Windows. Consumers who have a Mac or want additional printing features will pay $29 for the Home Premium edition. And there’s another version for businesses.

FinePrint Software has three different products to help you delete unwanted pages, print multiple pages on one sheet, and more. Each product has different features, although there is some overlap, so you’ll have to decide what’s most important to you. Sign up for a free trial before laying out the $49.95 or $99.95.

Here are some super-easy ways to save money on printing:

Print on both sides of the paper. Set your printer to automatically print on both sides of a sheet of paper and you’ll reduce your paper use by about 10% or more. Check to see if your printer has a duplex printing option, and, if does, turn it on. Learn how to enable it.

Want to do more? Ask you office manager to set up duplexing for all the printers in your office. An added incentive: During a 5-week test of double-sided printing, Citigroup saved about $98,000.

Change paper margins. The standard margins in Microsoft Word are 1 inch at the top and 1 ¼ inches on the left and right, but most of us can get along just fine with smaller margins.

If you change the margins to 0.75 all around, you’ll use about 5% less paper, according to a study done by the Penn State State Green Destiny Council. Get directions for changing the margins in Word. And, of course, you’ll make an even greater impact if you could convince your office manager to do the same.

 

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Environmental journalist Lori Bongiorno shares green-living tips and product reviews with Yahoo! Green’s users. Send Lori a question or suggestion for potential use in a future column. Her book, Green Greener Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-smart Choices a Part of Your Life is available on Yahoo! Shopping and Amazon.com.

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