3 Simple Ways To Be Green & Make Your Printing Eco-Friendly

Be honest; how many times have you finished a document or presentation and, either because of lack of awareness, laziness or sheer elation at finally reaching the end of this year’s sale figures, hit print straight away?

Over the past couple of posts, we’ve been taking a look at the environmental impact of printing and what you can do to reduce your personal contribution to it. In the last post, we looked at ways you can recycle and reuse your old printer cartridges for the benefit of the environment and your own wallet.

In this post, we’ll be looking at the ways you alter your printing practices to help save the environment and save yourself a few quid at the same time.

Every time you hit print, you use valuable printing supplies such as paper and ink. This isn’t necessarily a problem if you are getting a perfect print every time, but what about the times when the alignment of a document isn’t quite right? Or the print appears faded? Or a picture prints out across two pages when you only wanted one? The cost of these misprints, while seeming minor in isolation, soon add up.

This, in turn, leads to more ink and laser toner cartridges being purchased and thus more ink and toner cartridges manufactured. Empty cartridges, wasted from misprints, end up in landfill. Non-recycled paper also contributes to the growing landfill problem.

So how do you remedy this kind of mistake and save on office supplies? The answer is printing smarter - printing that uses the minimum amount of print consumables possible. There are a few simple tips to keep in mind in order to make your printing smarter; implement a few of these in your home or your office and you should find your home and office supplies last alot longer.

Review Your Print Settings

In the race to print as quickly as possible, print settings are often overlooked. As a result, misprints are produced and supplies are wasted. The solution to this is simple; always check your print settings before you hit print and, if you work in an office, encourage your staff to do the same.

A few key things to consider when reviewing your print settings include making sure the printer is set to only produce a large photo onto a single page, checking the formatting of a document to make sure it’ll print out as it appears on your screen and taking advantage of duplex printing, should your printer have the capability.

Consider Quality

It’s tempting, especially if you’re a perfectionist, to print absolutely everything in the highest quality possible. However, this isn’t the most eco-friendly of approaches.

Instead of printing in high quality as standard, consider what the document you’re producing is going to be used for. For internal office documents, for example, you can probably get away with printing at a lower quality and thus save yourself some valuable ink supplies.

To do change the quality of your print-outs, go to the control panel (or whatever alternative your OS features) on your computer and change the print quality to ‘draft’ in Printer Preferences. Draft mode uses less ink and is more eco-friendly than standard printing. As a bonus, it’ll also improve your printing speed!

Think Before You Print

The digital age has brought forth a vast array of online sharing options; email, social media and the cloud being just three. Before you hit print on a document, consider if the document could be shared with whom it is intended for in a digital format. Sharing docs online negates the need to use print consumables, while also reducing the office clutter produced by throwaway memos.

Changing the way you think before you print is easy and doesn’t cost you a penny to implement either at home or in the office. The benefits of these minor changes are plentiful too; not only will you be doing your bit for the environment, you should also find that your monthly and annual printing costs drop significantly too. A pretty good bargain, if you ask us!