Email Network Security Blog

Why Go Paperless? (For Your Business and Your Grandchildren)

Your office should go paperless. Why? Because you can save money and help make the planet cleaner. You care about your grandchildren don’t you? You want them to have trees to climb and shade to relax under and clean air to breath, right?

You can use modern technology (specifically email) to replace paper. Not only will you save money and help the environment, but it is much easier to retain, file, organize, and search through electronic documents.

Switch your office to a paperless one today and save money. Your business will save money:

• You can stop buying so many printers.
• You can stop buying so many toner cartridges.
• You can stop buying so much paper.
• Your landfill/waste bill can be reduced.

Your employees can take their laptop to meetings and view documents on-line. The youth generation won’t have the attachment to paper documents that many of us older folks have. They will be perfectly comfortable viewing reports on a screen. And many of us a bit older are willing to adjust, knowing the benefits of not using paper.

Some facts to consider:

• Financial businesses generate over 2 pounds of paper per employee per working day.
• Employees at American financial businesses generate about 2 lbs. of paper a day…per person! Source: The Recycler’s Handbook, 1990
• Nearly half of typical office paper waste is comprised of high grade office paper, for which there is strong recycling demand.
• It is possible to significantly decrease the costs of buying office paper by reducing paper use and reusing the paper you have.
• Eliminating office paper from your waste stream can cut your waste bill by 50 percent or more.
• Recycling one ton of paper typically saves $22 to $45 in landfill disposal costs (in 2004 dollars) and about 6.7 cubic yards of landfill space.
• Commercial and residential paper waste accounts for over 40 percent of waste currently being landfilled. Eliminating paper from waste would almost double the lives of current landfills.
• Every recycled ton of paper saves approximately 17 trees, which are then available for other uses, and approximately 462 gallons of oil. Recycling paper also reduces the air and water pollution due to paper manufacturing.
• Bank of America’s recycling programs grew from an initial diversion of 1,400 tons per year of computer and white paper in 1970 to divert 14,591 tons of paper in 1997. The company saved an estimated $483,000 in trash hauling fees by recycling paper. (Figures stated are pre-merger with NationsBank.) The bank has also undertaken major source reduction such as changing report procedures, reducing forms, using two-sided copying, routing slips, and e-mail.
• Approximately 324 L. of water is used to produce 1 KG of paper. Source: Environment Canada
• The average American uses more than 748 pounds of paper per year. Source: American Forest and Paper Association
• It is estimated that 95% of business information is still stored on paper. Source: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) Discussion Paper (IIED, London, September 1996)
• 3 cubic yards of landfill space can be saved by one on of recycled paper. Source: 50 Simple things you Can do to Save the Earth, Jodi B., Sudbury
• Every ton of recycled paper saves about 17 trees. Source: Purdue Research Foundation and US Environmental Protection Agency, 1996 Recycling paper
• Dioxin is one by-product from use of elemental chlorine gas in paper bleaching. Source: Printers National Environmental Assistance Centre, Fact Sheet by Todd MacFadden, and Michael P. Vogel, Ed.D. June, 1996
• Dioxins tend to bioaccumulate, which means their concentrations in organisms increase successively up the food chain. Source: Printers National Environmental Assistance Centre, Fact Sheet by Todd MacFadden, and Michael P. Vogel, Ed.D. June, 1996

Sources:

• http://www.filebankinc.com/reports/reduction_tips.html
• http://www.greenbiz.com/toolbox/essentials_third.cfm?LinkAdvID=4164