Two-Faced

Here's one for all you mega-printers out there - cut back on your paper habit.

The average office worker gets through 10,000 sheets of A4 paper a year¹ and, since most of these sheets end up in the bin, that’s a lot of trees going to waste. So, unnecessary single-sided printing reported as the biggest cause of office paper waste², this time being two-faced is definitely a good thing.

Why?

Our forests

10 million tonnes of paper and card were used in the UK during 2012 alone³, which is the equivalent of 240 million trees - the equivalent of a forest covering twice the area of Hong Kong – so we need to make the most of the paper we have ⁴.

Climate Change

It takes energy and other resources to turn those trees into useful paper. The average person in the UK uses 156 kg of paper and card each year⁵, releasing 70kg CO₂⁶ in the felling, transportation and production. Plus, it results in even fewer trees around to absorb all that extra CO₂. 

Pollution

Creating that perfect white sheet requires some chemical assistance. Paper production also often uses and releases a delightful cocktail of pollutants, like chlorine and ammonia⁷. Nice. 

Waste

Despite increasing recycling efforts, when we’ve finished with that paper a third of it still ends up going straight into landfill or incinerators⁸. All in all, it’s a pretty wasteful process.

Financial

Money might not grow on trees, but printing on both sides saves paper, which means it also saves your hard-earned cash.  An office with 100 employees could save over £2000 per year simply by printing double sided⁹.