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I am not telling or
recommending the Google Mail here for communicating with people, instead
I am telling about the Green Mail (mail is our traditional ways of
communication - sending through Dak, Post, courier etc. etc.).
As these days, we are
slowly and steadily come to understand about the importance of conserving
energy, preserving water, protect environment, curtail carbon emissions
and even the children know the importance of protection of environment and
people talk about the terms carbon emission, Ozone Layer, deforestation
like they talk about domestic items. The paper is produced by cutting
trees and the resultant deterioration of greenery will impact the
environment, think that one ton of paper saves 17 trees, 6,593 gallons of
water, 380 gallons of oil, 587 pounds of air pollution, 3.06 cubic yards
of landfill space and 4,077 kilowatt hours of energy.
The fact is that paper and pulp is the single largest industrial
consumer of forests and the fourth largest industrial consumer of energy.
A sustainable forest management practices is an effective way to limit the
destruction of the world's forests, a significant amount of pulp comes
from fast growing Eucalyptus trees planted on cleared rainforest land in
Brazil. Moreover, if you consider the chemical process used for pulp
production, the bleaching process to whiten the pulp, and finally, the
pollution created through the disposal of paper in landfills, office paper
consumption is anything but "green".
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Look around any office premises and it can be seen the piles of
paper being generated on daily basis; it is very easy to tell about
paperless office, however we wish to quickly dismiss the predictions of
the "paperless office" in the next count as we can not do this in a fine
morning. Even inspite of the introduction of the Internet and digital
technology, still paper is very important in the office and the trend of
consumption shows no signs of reduction in near future. Whether it is
printing email, web pages, documents, digital photographs, the office
environment is a huge source of paper waste, and moreover that it is a
costly affair. Research predicts office paper consumption increasing
by 20% per year, and on average, each office worker uses up to 50 sheets
of A4 paper a day.
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At the same time, paper is lost on desks, left in printer trays, or
even ripped within minutes of being printed, often unread. In a typical
office, at least half of the paper is wasted. Not only does this wastage
have an environmental impact, but major costs can be attributed to both
the purchasing and disposal of paper, not to mention the business
inefficiencies associated with paper dependent processes.
Though today information is most commonly captured electronically,
paper remains an active part of our life style for many of us, as it is a
familiar, convenient, and versatile medium. For those businesses for which
paper consumption is high, this paper dependency brings with it high
storage costs and reduced productivity associated with filing and
retrieving documents. It is our responsibility to reduce paper consumption
through a reduce, reuse, and recycle approach not only offers the
opportunity to improve business efficiency and save costs, but also
respond to the environmental concerns associated with paper consumption.
The negative environmental effects of paper use are complex and may not be
immediately obvious to organisations where paper is an unquestioned part
of their business processes. The premise of simply printing less should be
the starting point for any person wishing to reduce its paper trail. We
should adopt a concept of "think before you print" policy, which goes some
way to build awareness of the paper wastage associated with unnecessary
printing. However, when printed documents are needed, whether it is for
reference or review, there are a number of easy
steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of paper used;
1. Use double-sided printing on printers having such capabilities.
2. Use multiple images per page printing can significantly reduce printed
output.
3. Use smaller fonts
4. Print maximum PowerPoint presentation sheets on one sheet (we usually
go for 2 on a page)
5. Use print preview to check document layout and to use track changes for
document review rather than using hard copy output.
6. Think before printing, if it is really needed or not doing it for the
sake of printing such documents.
7. Avoid sending fax msgs. instead send scanned msgs over mail (insist
people to have email account and often open it)
8. Unimportant and small matters can be discussed while reading on
computer.
To effectively print less, users need to be educated about these
methods for reducing printed output. Even as this is a good starting
point, for an organisation to truly understand their print and paper
usage, a rightsizing approach to the printer environment needs to be
developed. Rightsizing office equipment by replacing single function
desktop printers, faxes, and copiers with multifunction devices can help
paper reduction through enabling users to scan documents and send an
electronic version to multiple recipients, instead of making multiple
copies of the document. Rightsizing can not only lower paper consumption
in this way, but also offer the added benefits of reduced energy, ink,
toner, and maintenance costs.
Moving to an electronic document management system can be a key
step in tackling the paper utilization. There is no doubt that there is
tremendous scope for reducing paper waste in offices. However, it would be
foolish to chase the utopian ideal of the paperless office. If there is an
office, there are papers too, we are obsessed with papers and situation is
like that we can not live without papers. The optimum office print
environment has to be one where paper use is efficiently managed, and
processes are in place to take advantage of today's scanning, storage,
workflow, and communication technology that can transform fundamental
business processes. Shifting from a "print-and-distribute" model to
a more efficient "" approach will not only reduce costs, but boost
productivity and help reduce the office paper mountain which has never
been more important than in today's environmentally aware business
culture.
Everyone has to understand how can we protect the environment and to save
the earth as well as save money by protecting the environment. Climate
change is very much in the in the news. It is desirable everyone's
"GOING GREEN." Luckily, many of the steps
we can take to stop climate change can make our lives better. Our
grandchildren-and their children-will thank us for living more
sustainable. The paper recycling is an obvious and easy way to reduce
waste in the workplace; it diverts paper from landfills and addresses some
of the concerns related to the production of "virgin pulp" paper. Although
recycling has certain benefits in minimizing paper wastage, ultimately
reducing paper use is the most effective way to limit the environmental
impact of paper waste.
Let's start now. Let us go GMail and let us go
GREEN
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