UW Green Bay switched its e-mail from arial to century gothic to save ink. They are very similar fonts, but arial has heavier lines. Link
As commenters point out, not printing e-mail saves 100% of the ink. The comment about font width is not exactly correct - century gothic is larger overall, so you should shrink the font size as well. Arial 11 is the size of century gothic 10.
Thanks for the tip, Janet
Suggestion: Put clings on paper towel dispensers stating "These come from trees." These are commercially available as stickers and have reportedly caused great reduction in towel use.
We do not want to use stickers because they may not be water-resistant and are too permanent. Magnets won't ork because the towel dispensers are not steel.
Possible sources for printable cling material: www.d-lux.com
www.psprint.com/stickers-labels
Nothing wastes paper like glossy, full-color mailings to the entire campus. We have worked on a letter to send offending departments asking them to stop. We hope to work with the Sustainability Coordinator on this.
A bulletin boards can replace student/staff mailings IF it is...
- Uncluttered
- Sorted
Printers and copiers now have "one-sided paper" boxes. These boxes are for pages with printing on one side, so they can be manually fed into printers or reloaded into copiers.
A couple of rules:
- No wrinkles, staples or anything that would cause jams
- No confidential information
Advantages:
- Save paper
- 'forces' participants to choose an acceptable response
- Can check for missing/inconsistent data
- No data entry errors by staff
- Quick access to data
This has been referred to the P & A's for now
People do print personal materials from work computers, though it is against the rules.
Idea: Encourage prudence in non-work printing by collecting a small fee per page (honor system).
Reality: This seems to be a non-starter. There is no way to deal with this money in the accounting system as it exists. If you create a 'grant', what if the money doesn't add up? Where do you store the money? (Remember the tournament money?)
No matter how well we conserve, we do use paper. Due to an error in ordering EpiCH was receiving sub-par paper, but we are back to the good stuff:
- 100% post-consumer (see extended entry) recycled content
- process chlorine free
E-mailing PDF's instead of sending faxes is a money and paper-saving method.
Mac users can simply follow their print commands and choose save as PDF. PC users who do not have Office 2007 or Adobe Acrobat may be better off sending it to someone who does.
EpiCH uses well over 5 million sheets of paper each year. Just a few easy changes could save millions of pages. See the following entries to learn how to do more:
Duplex printing
Reduce print margins
Stop printing e-mails
Use print preview to eliminate mostly empty sheets
Archive electronically or 4 pages per sheet
Send e-mails instead of making copies for coworkers
Send PDF's instead of faxes
Use our "One-sided paper" bins
Use bulletin boards instead of distributing announcements
Duplex printing is the easiest way to save paper. When you print choose the Preferences tab. If you are printing an upright(portrait) page choose "Flip on long edge". If you are printing a landscape document choose "Flip on short edge".
Pages purchased:
WBOB - 18 cases/wk * 52 weeks = 4,680,000 pages/year
ECRC - 94 cases last fiscal year = 470,000 pages/year
Copies made: 2 million/yr
Pages printed:
Your computer is backed up weekly. The servers are backed up most nights. Is a paper copy really safer than a PDF on the computer? If you do need hard copy archives but will use them only rarely, consider printing 2 or 4 pages per sheet.
PC users: choose Print > Preferences/Properties > Layout tab > Pages per sheet.
Mac users: choose Print > Copies & pages scroll to Layout > Pages per sheet.
Choose 2 or 4 pages. This prints 1/2 or 1/4 size copies, which take up less storage space and save paper.
Articles: Yes, paper copies are easier to read, but ask yourself how many times you'll read it. Where will you store it? Then decide if it's better to keep it on the computer or print it.
E-mail: You know who you are - the ones who print every e-mail you get. It's the 21st century! Use e-mail folders to store messages where you can find them. Copy and paste the text into other documents if you want. Just don't print them unless you need to use the message when you're away from the computer.
What’s the difference between the Office Paper and Newspaper Plus recycling bins?
Most of us know to check Print Preview for Word documents, to see if pages are split in a funny way. This can be even more important for programs that often print nearly empty pages. These show up in printer trays all the time. In most programs print preview can be reached by File > Print preview or a magnifying glass icon.
According to a study done by the Penn State Green Destiny Council, reducing margins to .75� on all sides results in a total reduction of paper by 4.75%.
HOW-TO
How to change the default Margins for Microsoft Word on a Mac:
1. On the File menu, click Page Setup, under setting choose Microsoft Word, and then click Margins.
2. Under Margins, select the options you want.
3. Click Default (located on the bottom left of the page). Click Yes.
How to change the default Margins for Microsoft Word on a PC:
1. On the File menu, click Page Setup, and then click the Margins tab.
2. Under Margins, select the options you want.
3. Click Default after you select new margin settings.
What is a friendly e-mail signature that discourages printing?
We suggest “Save paper: Think before you print.�
Subsequent suggestion (7/18/08): "Please consider the environment - Think before you print"
Is there a paper-saving program that edits SAS output?
options formdlim = ‘-‘; substitutes a line of ------- for page breaks, or you can set the distance between breaks to be large (instructions to come later).