How to Reduce Paper Waste in Your Business

It’s a fair assumption to believe that most businesses have gone entirely paperless, what with the advances in technology and cloud services, etc. However, this is far from the truth, and far too many organizations still use paper for a variety of reasons. While you may have perfectly valid reasons for this, it is always a good idea to look into how you operate and see if there are any ways in which you can reduce your own paper wastage. Not only can you boost your environmental credentials, but you could also save a significant amount of money in the process. After all, reducing the waste from any stripe is something that all businesses ought to strive for. We are going to offer a few suggestions for those that still require the use of paper in one form or another to achieve this task so that you can benefit from all the advantages that a reduced paper environment can yield.

Recycle Paper And Other Materials Responsibly

Some instances may require the use of paper, and regardless of how much technology you desire to implement, paper is what you need to operate. However, if this is the case, you still have one obvious option starting you in the face if you really hope to reduce wastage (even if it won’t directly affect you). Perhaps one of the best aspects of paper is that it can be easily recycled and reused in various other forms. However, if you choose to go down this route, you can save yourself an awful lot of hassle by outsourcing the process of collection and sorting to a business that is dedicated to the process of paper recycling. According to AB Recycling, you can even have your paper waste collected on a regular schedule, saving you an inordinate amount of effort. It’s often worth outsourcing this task as it will save you and your team effort and resources in trying to take your paper waste to a recycling center by yourself. 

Go Digital With Document Storage Solutions

Perhaps the most obvious answer to reducing paper usage throughout your company is to go digital. As we have already stated, in some cases, this might not be possible, but in other situations, it’s well worth the effort to digitize your official documentation and archive it in the cloud. As long as you use a highly secure and well-recognized cloud service like those from the likes of the big three: Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, your data should be perfectly safe. An additional advantage that you’ll receive by going through this process is that document retroviral will be a breeze, and you will save vast sums of money by not needing to lease large storage units to keep archived documents. 

Implement Electronic Invoicing And Billing Systems

One of the ways that many businesses worldwide use paper is via their invoicing and billing procedures. Although paper has mostly been phased out, some organizations still stick to the old-school methods of creating, printing, and sending physical copies to their clients. Instead, you will be far better served by investing in an invoicing and billing solution that stores everything you do online and allows easy access for your accounting team to check and send immediately. The better options also allow you to connect various pay,ment gateways making the payment process even faster, and if a bill is unpaid for a certain amount of time, you can even program the software to resend out reminders every x amount of days, weeks, or months. 

Encourage Paperless Communication Among Employees

While this point isn’t so much of an issue these days, some companies still use the dreaded paper memo (conjuring up images of Office Space and the manager from hell!). Not only are these forms of communication highly wasteful since the memo tends to end up in the bin after it’s been read, but they are also highly inefficient. Rather than having to use the archaic ways of paper, you can spend some money and use a system like Slack or Teams to send highly targeted communications to specific team members instantaneously. What’s more, is that you can also set up departmental “rooms” so that if you have a specific message only the accounting department needs to see, it won’t disturb other employees with incessant notifications. 

Print Double-Sided To Save Paper

This tip is really a no-brainer, and in almost all situations, there is no reason why a document should only be printed on one side. All modern printers and photocopiers are fully capable of not merely printing out your documents on both sides but can often do so without human intervention and collating the document so that it remains in sheet order. If you usually print on one side, making this small change will instantly halve your paper usage overnight, resulting in massive cost savings and, of course, less of an impact on natural resources. If your printer is incapable of performing this task without having someone standing next to it to turn each sheet over and reinsert it into the tray, then it might be time to invest a bit of cash into a new printer that can.

Optimize Printing Settings For Efficiency

This is another one of those quick wins that you will kick yourself for not thinking of before. If you have never checked your printer settings, you may be shocked to find that the default settings don’t make the most efficient use of space. By increasing margins and decreasing font sizes, you can make full use of each sheet of paper, potentially saving a lot of paper that would have otherwise been used. It can seem like a bit of a nightmare delving into your printer settings, but a little bit of initial effort could be hugely worthwhile down the line.

Educate Staff About Waste Reduction

Most people in modern societies already know and fully understand the effects of waste and the need to cut down as much as feasible. However, it can’t hurt to educate your team on how to reduce their paper usage. You can also add this training to your onboarding material for new hires, so you don’t need to constantly retread the same old points all the time.

Reducing waste ought to be one of the top priorities for most businesses to cut down on expenses and boost their image vis-a-vis the environment. Using the tips outlined in this post should get you most of the way there.

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