While printing hard copies or documents is essential for many businesses and their processes, the uncontrolled use of printers and copiers can result in significant blows to budgets and also the environment. Taking control of printing practices doesn’t mean vetoing printing altogether but rather printing responsibly and putting processes in place that help minimize waste. Here are 5 printing hacks that will help your office be more green without spending more green:

Configure Printers for Default Duplexing

Double sided printing (a.k.a. duplex printing) drastically reduces the amount of paper consumed by an office. It literally cuts paper consumption in half. Not only are you helping to save trees but you are also reducing the amount of money spent on paper.

In the same way that printing in colour is not necessary all of the time, printing one-sided does not need to be your office norm. Save the one-sided printing for big items like presentation pieces or whenever else it is warranted. Configure your printers to automatically print double-sided and this will become habit. When someone needs to print single sided, they can select the option to do so.

Stop Printing Emails

Make it a policy that emails do not get printed in your office. More often than not, printing emails results in excessive printing where email threads get printed alongside the one conversation that actually needs to be documented. In an age where most people can easily retrieve emails from their smartphone or desktop, the need for having a physical document is simply redundant and unnecessary.

Use Recycled Paper

Recycled paper should be a no-brainer in your office. There are numerous high quality recycled paper options to choose from and as technology progresses the distinction between ‘new’ paper and recycled paper is imperceptible.

Recycle Cartridges and Devices

Don’t throw out empty cartridges or dead printing devices. Reputable vendors will have recycling programs in place that will willing pick up your old cartridges or equipment and dispose of them in an environmentally sound and socially responsible manner. Ask the vendors you work with what options they have for proper disposal of these items and if they do not have a recycling program in place, consider choosing a more progressive and responsible source for your printing supplies and printing equipment needs.

Reassess Your Printing Environment

When was the last time you looked at your office printing environment as a whole? Are processes in place that can help alleviate printing loads like moving things from a paper filing system to an electronic based data management system? Are your employees aware of their own paper and printer consumption practices? Do you know how much gets printed on a daily, monthly, annual basis?

More often than not, the answers to these questions are null. As such, assessing your printing environment is a worthwhile practice to understand where money is being spent and where it can be saved. Managed Print Services help business owners gain control of their printing and imaging fleet by assessing their current printing practices and providing solutions that ultimately save business owners money. By seeing what gets printed, what printing requirements a business needs and then creating optimized solutions including hardware, supply management and more, managed print services can actually save you a ton of money and present novel ways to reduce your environmental footprint.