Paper - the forgotten hero

The amount of paper we use/waste in our offices is really disturbing and scary, more so because you can't do anything as its beyond your control.

A small of team of ~25 employees itself add an average of 100+ sheets to the waste bin on any given day, i wonder how much our entire office wastes in a day, probably could fill in the public library with it after a year.

I suggested couple of them to try printing double sided unless its to be given to a customer and I got the look as if I was extra-terrestrial.

I'm glad I didn't suggest them the whole list of things i had in mind to them, probably would have got fired for attempting to think beyond my salary scope.

That said I like the initiatives taken by the government and some private companies in reducing like the decision to send Annual reports to shareholders by PDF and not printed, allowing commuters to show e-ticket on cell phone instead of print outs, charging for shopping bags so that they use only required or bring their own etc

I remember during school days the postman used to delivery lots of printed annual reports to our house as granddad had bought shares, not that he used to invest a lot but he used to buy less shares but in more companies to keep his basket mixed up. I've never seen him even touch any of those reports, end of the year, grand-mom just ties it up and we sell it for paper money and it ends up in one of those street hawkers hand who uses it for wrapping around whatever is that he sells. Now that doesn't happen thanks to it being sent as PDF.