Paper Efficiency

Editor's Note: This material was excerpted from a research project of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The full research can be found at http://eetd.lbl.gov/Paper/. This project was funded by the US Department of Energy and copyrights retained accordingly. However per the Lab's policy documents on that site may be freely distributed and used for non-commercial, scientific and educational purposes.

Some years ago, the idea of the "paperless office" was popularized as an ideal. We are all familiar with "paperwork" such as filling out seemingly useless or unnecessarily complicated forms. Electronic alternatives such as computers seemed to offer the promise of getting a machine to do this busywork. By banishing the paper, we could avoid the hassle.

There is no question that electronic data management can be used to reduce administrative burdens. However, paper doesn't cause paperwork, organizations do. Because organizations can process electronic forms more easily than paper ones, it may be that so-called paperwork will even increase in the future, with most of it done on-line. It was never fair to blame the paper, so while we reduce paper use, we should not go overboard and try to avoid paper in those cases where it is the best tool for the job.

Paper is far too useful and satisfying to do without. Even if we tried, we wouldn't be successful. A "paperless office" makes about as much sense as a "glassless office" or a "metalless office."

The paper efficiency approach acknowledges the usefulness of paper, but recognizes that we can still use considerably less than we do now. The paperless office is like a starvation fast that just won't last. By contrast, paper efficiency is like a balanced diet with good physical exercise.

Paper Recycling

Increasing paper efficiency is usually quite separate from office paper recycling programs. The actions you take to do one don't help out the other. When paper efficiency is successful, there is less material to be collected for recycling (and less put into landfills as well). Recycling goals and programs need to be adapted as we reduce paper use, but recyclers understand that it is better to make less waste even when it reduces recycling.

What Is Paper Efficiency?

Paper efficiency measures how much paper is needed to perform a specific task. Improving paper efficiency means accomplishing the same task, with less mass of paper used.

1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first copier with an automatic "duplexing" feature (duplexing is copying onto both sides of a sheet). Most people have made duplex copies, but today, most copies are still single-sided. Duplexing some of these copies that are now single-sided is a way to get the same information on fewer sheets of paper, and so is an example of increasing paper efficiency.

Another example of paper efficiency arises in copying from a book. In many cases, one can copy two book pages onto one side of a "standard" (8.5 x 11 inch) sheet, particularly if the reduction feature of the copier is used. Use of both strategies together (duplexing and putting two original pages on each copied side) can reduce paper use by up to 75%.

Paper efficiency is much like energy efficiency. A more efficient car needs less gas to go the same distance as a less efficient car. Adding insulation to the walls of a house reduces the heating bill and also makes the house more comfortable to be in. Just as energy efficiency is not about "freezing in the dark," improving paper efficiency does not mean losing any of the desired information on the paper.

The key to efficiency is that we usually don't want the paper itself, but the service that it helps provide. For example, we buy a newspaper for the news it contains, not for the newsprint. Because of this, we rarely focus attention on the paper itself, and organizations don't have "Paper Departments." Instead, every part of an organization uses some paper in delivering their product. By taking time to examine and rethink our use of paper we can help ourselves, our organization, and the environment.

Recycling paper and using recycled content paper are good to do, but as they do not affect the amount of paper we use, they do not increase paper efficiency.

Methods to Reduce Paper Use

Duplexing

One of the most effective ways to reduce paper use is to use both sides of a piece of paper rather than just one. The technical term for this is duplexing. While most of us duplex a lot already, we could be doing it much more. With duplexing, you save money on buying paper,as well as storage and mailing. It is also easier to fold, staple, and carry around duplexed paper. While some prints and copies do need to be single-sided but most do not.

Duplexing can be done on copiers, printers, and multi-function devices (MFDs). The primary duplexing issues to consider are "default duplex", the speed at which your copier (or printer) duplexes, and assuring the reliability of duplexing.

Image avoidance

By "image avoidance," we mean that the content of a page doesn't get printed at all. Simple examples of this are fax cover sheets, confirmation sheets, and printer cover pages. Usually, either the information on these pages is unnecessary, or it can be incorporated into the actual document. For copying, more copying "on demand" can avoid a wasted inventory of copied documents that become obsolete. Because the costs of both the paper and the imaging are avoided, image avoidance has the largest savings.

Another way to avoid images is to the change way information is managed. When an electronic database or document is more "accessible" to someone than a paper version, people may choose to print less. Accessibility includes the ability to find the information, managing it, and reading it.

Image reduction

Image reduction reduces the area of an image so that more images can be put on the same area of paper. While some reduction can be done to reduce large images to regular size sheets of paper, a larger impact can be made by putting more than one "page" of content on a side of a sheet of paper. This is called "image combination" on copiers and "n-up printing" on printers. Reducing font sizes, margins, and the use of "white space" can also reduce the number of "pages" a document uses.

Imaging savings

Some strategies don't save paper at all, but they are still worthwhile. Many inkjet and laser printers have "economy," "draft," or "toner reduction" modes that use less toner than is standard. This can save on ink and toner costs, which can be larger than paper costs. In addition, some printers operate faster in draft modes.

Paper reuse

"Half-used" paper has an image on one side (from a printer, a copier, or outdated letterhead), but has a clean second side. Half-used paper is ready for a second life through "reuse". Reusing paper is not recycling, as you are using the paper directly, not just recovering the value in the fibers.

Paper "thickness"

When you purchase "thinner" paper, less paper fiber is needed to make the same number of sheets. We really mean "lighter" paper, but it is easier to visualize the change in terms of thickness.

One approach is to change standard copy paper to a lighter "basis weight" than the typical 20 lb. (75 g/m2 used in the U.S, perhaps 18 lb. This is not currently available, but could be in the future. Another approach is to reduce the paper weight used if it is more than 20 lb.

Paper that is too thin may not serve well for duplexing, since the back side image may be visible through the paper, however, with common weight paper, this is not an issue.