How to cut down on paper usage at workplace

Here's how you can cut down on paper usage at work. Paper is wasted more than any other item in offices. You also use paper more than anything else in your office.

1. Measure the amount of paper that you use in your office.

Looking at where paper is used in office.

Consider whether or not you and your employees are using these following paper and cost saving measures within your office:
are you cutting down on how many images/documents are being printed and/or copied? You can do this through the following:

• --viewing documents online
• --keeping mailing lists current
• --using routing slips
• --making more use of email instead of printed memos
• --reduce how many times things are being unnecessarily printed

are you collecting and recycling paper in your office?
are you regularly purchasing recycled paper?
do you recycle paper by using left-over paper as scratch paper?
can you reduce the size of paper used?
are you making employees aware of how they can cut down on paper?

2. Consider a paperless office.

Many people are trying to move towards making their offices and businesses entirely paperless. This approach has some drawbacks and some benefits. Here's an overview of why you would want to and why you might not want to make your office paperless. While you will save costs on your paper, you might rack up costs in other areas, including a reduction of productivity until your employees learn how to use the new systems.

Essentially, a paperless office makes use of different technologies and information systems in an effort to reduce the amount of paper that is used throughout the office. This ideally will result in reducing costs and increasing effectiveness.

With a paperless office, you will actually just send your document to a receiving machine straight from your computer. Then every letter that is on the document is processed as text through the use of Optical Character Recognition, so that you can use Microsoft Word to edit the document without too much hassle.

4. Use content management systems

You can make use of content management systems to allow all employees to access a document and work on it collaboratively. You can set up access to the document so that only people working on a project have access to the project.

5. Pros of paperless offices

a. cost efficiency
b. time efficiency
c. better organization
d. potential to cut down on mistakes

6. Cons of paperless offices

a. you won't actually stop using paper
b. your computers can crash and destroy your office
c. need for constant updates
d. need to constantly upgrade technology
e. have to fight against the mindset of the office