smallbusiness.co.uk: Helping your business think big

More than half of office workers admit to wastefully printing documents, according to a survey of 2,000 office workers released by government-funded programme Envirowise.

The advice body is calling on employees who get through more than 22 pages a day to do more to combat waste.

Mary Leonard, director of Envirowise, says, ‘Unnecessary printing of emails, multiple copies, single-sided printing and the sending of massive documents to the printer which are unlikely to be read, are just some of the regular scenarios lived out by businesses every day as a result of “accidental printing.”

‘Most offices will find they can reduce waste costs by around 20 per cent through simple no- or low-cost actions. Measures such as double sided or multiple page printing and recycling instead of paying for disposal can really help.’

Envirowise says the true cost of waste can be between five and ten times the cost to a business of disposing of it.