How do you make your home office more eco-friendly? Start by looking at your entire printing process and consider investing in the right printer, return print cartridges and be mindful of your paper usage.
Those of us who spend considerable amounts of time at our home offices should be thinking about how to make our workplace more eco-friendly. Mother Nature is counting on it.
One of the biggest wastes in a home office involves paper. Sure, we are waiting for the moment when every business transaction will happen in the digital world. But, until then, the truth is that we still print a lot of documents, from invoices to reports or business plans.
While you may be able to avoid printing a few pages here and there, the reality is that sometimes it’s a necessity. So how can you implement eco-friendly practices given this circumstance?
Consider these tips to make your small office or home office more sustainable:
Invest in the Right Printer
Take a good look at your printer and check its specification regarding consumption. Especially if you’re working with an old device, the amount of energy required by that machine to perform a single task might be costing both you and the environment, a lot.
Newer models usually aim to perform better using less energy. For example, focus on purchasing a power-efficient printer that can help you save up on your energy bills. If you only have to print a couple of pages a week, then you can choose from our wide selection of fine small printers.
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Don’t Throw Away the Cartridges
Even if you choose a low-consuming printer, you still have to replace the ink cartridges regularly. The life-span of a cartridge varies based on the volume of printing and the colors used. You can prolong its life expectancy if you stick with only black and white prints, use a thinner font, and print on both sides of the sheets. Sooner or later, however, you will have to replace the cartridges.
And that can be an issue. 60%-80% of all cartridges are thrown away directly into the trash and end up in a landfill. Most importantly, it takes about 1000 years for one to decompose fully.
Now, instead of adding to those numbers, you can take advantage of the pick-up programs many ink cartridge manufacturers offer to their customers. Check your provider’s website to learn more about how you can make your printing process more sustainable.
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Mindful Paper Consumption
Another vital step you must take in your efforts to creating a green home office is thinking about your paper usage. Thinking about if you can reuse some of your documents will make a big impact. For example, instead of printing a new file with the details of this week’s projects, you can use last week’s document and print on the other side. It may not seem like a significant step, but you can save a lot by reusing your paper and reducing consumption. In that case, make sure to use paper that is opaque enough so the other side doesn’t show through.
For instances where you simply must use a fresh sheet, such as when crafting a contract or business plan, are you using the most sustainable sheet? One of the best ways to have a eco-friendly office is to choose to purchase paper from a sustainable, responsible source. Double A, for example, grows their own trees on unused strips of land between rice paddies, called KHAN-NA. They also incorporate the highest level of eco-friendly practices in the manufacturing process.
Creating a Sustainable Home Office
The fact remains that regular households produce a lot of waste each year. Because so much of that waste takes decades to decompose, our landfills are filling up at a fast rate.
It is vital that people start adopting eco-friendly practices at home and work. These tips can help you reduce your home office waste and contribute to saving the planet.