I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to cut down on paper use in my life. Back in the good old corporate days, I always had to print millions of documents to review with different teams. And I was famous (or infamous, depending on who you talk to) for shrinking down each page to 50% so I could fit two pages on each sheet of paper, and of course I’d also print on both sides of the sheet. One client in particular often complained that the type was too little for him to read, so I’d print a “special” copy for him that was at 100% but still printed on both sides. Once, I tried to pull off a review with no paper copies and just projected the document on a large screen… while this saved several trees, it required me to shut the lights and I heard several people snoring!

So in addition to shrinking pages and printing on both sides of each sheet, what else can we do around the office to reduce the amount of paper we use?

First, change your Word settings (in the normal.dot template).  Why Microsoft decided that we’d need an inch on the top and bottom and 1.25 inches on each side is completely beyond me, but it’s excessive. You can reduce your margins significantly with no impact to your documents. I set mine to be a quarter of an inch on each side and half an inch on the top and bottom to allow for a quarter in for headers and footers. You can also change the margins in Excel files too.

Second, I also always use font size 10 instead of 12 and up.

Third, unless your document is going somewhere or to someone really important, I find that Title pages are completely superfluous. Just include the information in header or footer instead.

Fourth, while we’re at it, a lot of networked printers are set to print out a cover sheet to distinguish the owner of the print job. Let’s get rid of that too. We’re smart enough to figure out which documents are ours. (And let’s face it, even with the cover sheet, we’ve all accidentally stolen other’s printout before!)

Fifth, (this one requires a little more effort and coordination) dedicate one network printer to draft copies and other non-important printouts. Since there were people that were against printing on both sides, they could drop off papers that still had a blank side into this printer and we would be able to use up the blank side before sending these papers off to their final destination to be recycled. This was also great because we could set the printer to economy mode and use up less toner too.

Sixth, in Powerpoint, print in Handout mode and include several slides per page. If you’ve got an effective presentation, then there should only be a few bullets per page, so it will still be readable when you shrink it down.

Lastly, think before you print. Do you really need hard copies of your emails and TPS reports? Probably not – so don’t print it! If you really must have a hard copy, then see if someone else has already printed it out. If not, then at least try to share your copy when you’re done to save someone else from printing it also.

Now take these ideas to your office manager and demand change! …And while you’re at it, ask for a raise too -- you deserve a reward for helping to cut costs and go green! :-)

I spent a good part of the day running errands today and saw some really cute gift wrap in the stores that I almost bought… then I stopped myself. I’m usually the person that’s storming around the mall the week before the holidays to try to find the *perfect* presents for everyone, but not this year! I’ve already started shopping—especially since I’ll have to schlep it all on the plane with me up to NY and NJ this year.

Aside from not being able to get wrapped presents through airport security, wrapping paper is also extremely wasteful. Just think back to the last holiday or birthday party you were at. Wasn’t there a huge mountain of gift wrap that usually gets tossed in the garbage? (Note: a lot of wrapping paper isn’t even recyclable!).

Well, this year, I’m looking for alternatives to wrapping paper. In fact, I’ve already started using alternatives. Last month, I went to a little girl’s birthday party, so I tucked her present in pretty gift bag that someone else had given me and then I used my trusty paper shredder to make some stuffing with old subway maps (that I obviously no longer need now that I’m in FL!)  It was cute, colorful, a good alternative to tissue paper, and it was a huge hit! Don’t have subway maps? You can use old magazines, catalogs, newspapers, comic books, wall paper scraps, your children’s artwork, or old calendars! And if you don’t have any gift bags to re-gift, you don’t have to shred these items, you can them as wrapping paper instead!

Over the summer, I gave my friend her birthday present in a reusable tote bag that she could take to the supermarket and on our garage sale adventures. You can never have too many tote bags! If you don’t want to go buy them, a simple google search will give you a plethora of ways to make your own! (Instructables is a fabulous resource and has a ton of different bag designs!!)

Honestly thought, I just love wrapping paper! (I almost tried to become a wrapping paper designer!) So if you absolutely must buy wrapping paper, at least try to buy paper that’s made from 100% recycled materials and is 100% recyclable. And if you receive a gift that’s wrapped, you can do what I always do… ever so carefully open the present so that you can reuse the wrapping paper later for origami cranes, greeting cards, scrapbooks, etc.  

And here’s a bonus… don’t buy birthday and holiday cards, cut up some old ones that you’ve received and make gift tags! Or kick it up a notch and make a collage card with a couple different designs! Now that’s not recycling, that’s UPcycling! ;-)

To continue with the recycling theme from last week, I’ve got two things to share with you.

First, I had to tell you about something I recently realized that I’ve been doing wrong for years and years! Plus I see lots of other people doing the same thing all the time! What is it? Recycling plastic and glass bottles with the cap ON. I’ve always thought, “Hey, they’re both plastic so they both get recycled, right?”  Wrong for a few reasons:

1. It turns out that the cap is made from a plastic resin that melts at a different rate from the plastic that bottles are made of.
2. The melted plastic caps will contaminate the quality of the plastic that’s made from the bottle.
3. Keeping the cap on the bottle requires a lot more effort (read: energy) to crush it and break it down.

So unfortunately, it seems that the best way to deal with those plastic bottle caps is to either turn them into crafty projects or chuck them in with the garbage.
Here are a few other tips for recycling those ubiquitous bottles:

- Always drain and rinse your glass and plastic bottles (just a couple swooshes of water will do, no need to use soap)
- Make sure your bottles are empty of liquid before putting them in the recycling bin to avoid adding extra weight (read: more fuel needed to transport) and to prevent a mess and potential injuries at the recycling plant
- Flatten your bottles (in the case of plastic) so that more will fit in your bin and in the recycling truck

And secondly, here’s a great article from Real Simple magazine on how to recycle anything! (Thanks Jen!)

I admit it, I used to be a user… of plastic bags, that is! As a result, I’ve accumulated what feels like hundreds of bags over the years. And I’ve dutifully moved my huge stash with me from apartment to apartment within NYC and now all the way to FL. 

When we first got to Orlando, we didn’t know where we had packed our reusable totes, so we had to resort back to getting bags at the grocery store, but now we’ve got several totes that we use. Sometimes if I forget, I insist on juggling it all in my arms to the car. It’s a pretty funny sight! 

What’s not funny is that only 1 to 3% of plastic bags end up getting recycled. And in fact, many of the bags that are collected for recycling never actually get recycled! They get shipped to countries like India and China, where they get cheaply incinerated under more lax environmental laws. Even if the recycling rate does go up, it doesn’t solve the problem of the use of non-renewable energy and toxic chemicals. So make sure you always have some reusable totes tucked in the trunk of your car or in your bag (they fold up and weigh nothing!). 

So, what’s a girl to do when she already has a whole mountain of bags?! Well, while I was following up on the millions of blogs I subscribe to each day, I stumbled upon the genius idea of crocheting them into plastic bag totes! Being a total newbie hooker (ahem, that’s a crocheter!), I didn’t think I’d have to the skills to get past the part where you cut the bags up, but at my Happy Hooker meetup tonight, two of my friends had made them and they’re newbies too! I was delightfully inspired and will be starting that project soon!

If you’d like to try it too, here are the best instructions I’ve seen for a simple tote: http://www.marloscrochetcorner.com/Plastic%20Bag%20tote.html

If you’re more advanced and adventurous, here are some more options:
http://www.myrecycledbags.com/