Envirowise urges end to wasteful printing

Government-backed green advisory body Envirowise is today urging office workers to think before they print, in the wake of many studies showing that most employees are guilty of wasting paper on a daily basis.

"Unnecessary printing of emails, multiple copies, single-sided printing and the sending of massive documents to the printer which are unlikely to be read, are just some of the regular scenarios found in businesses every day as a result of 'accidental printing'," warned Mary Leonard, a director at Envirowise.

The organisation cited a recent study from Fujitsu Siemens Computers which found that the average office worker prints out 22 pages of paper every day, resulting in up to 120 billion pages being printed each year across the UK.

A similar study from Envirowise and the Environment Agency found that more than half of office workers admit to wastefully printing documents they do not need or use, resulting in 4.7 million tonnes of paper and board entering the waste stream each year.

According to Envirowise, this wastefulness costs businesses millions of pounds a year, with the agency arguing that the cost of disposing of office waste can represent four per cent of turnover for many firms, with some manufacturing companies spending as much as 10 per cent of turnover on office waste.

"Most offices will find they can reduce waste costs by about 20 per cent through simple no- or low-cost actions," said Leonard. "Measures such as double-sided or multiple-page printing and recycling instead of paying for disposal can really help."

She added that firms could find advice on how best to implement printing best practices in Envirowise's new Green Officiency Toolkit, which aims to help office workers identify no- and low-cost ways to cut their environmental footprint.