Do you work in a 'paper-less office'?

Read on and find out how to save your organisation money and help the environment.

Office Paper

Introduction

About 600,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard from domestic, commercial and industrial sources are sent to landfill in NSW each year. The actual amount of office waste going to landfill in NSW is not currently known, however studies show a large amount of office waste is made up of paper. Much of this waste paper could be reused or recycled — a potentially valuable resource lost forever.

Most of the 210,000 tonnes of office paper consumed yearly in Australia is non-recycled paper sourced from Australia, Asia and Europe. The NSW Government is a major consumer of paper, spending over $18 million on paper contracts. Currently, much of this paper does not contain recycled content.

The Waste Reduction and Purchasing Policy (WRAPP) aims to turn waste paper into a resource by encouraging government agencies to increase purchases of recycled content paper and reduce the amount of paper they use.

Buy

Some interesting figures...

The NSW Government is a major consumer of paper, spending over $18 million on paper contracts.

Most organisations do not realise how much paper they buy. If you include costs associated with handling, transport, printing, storage and disposal then it rapidly adds up. Reducing the amount of paper you buy can save a lot of money.

Try to centralise the purchasing of paper and stationery as much as possible. This enables you to maximise your buying-power and increase efficiency. Use online ordering where possible to save time and paper.

Set up a system to monitor who is buying paper in your organisation. This will enable you to identify big paper users and see if paper reduction initiatives are working.

Substituting virgin paper products with recycled content alternatives is an important part of the WRAPP (WRAPP Facts: Recycled content paper has more ideas).

Limiting the range of paper and stationery products staff can buy will save lots of money. Your supplier can often do this for you.

More about buying the WRAPP way >>

Use

We all use too much paper!

The NSW Government uses over 3.3 million reams of A3 and A4 copy paper each year.

We all use too much paper and it’s often quite easy to use less. Find out how paper is being used and disposed of within your agency. Key areas include general office use, stationery, forms, correspondence, records and printed publications.

Recycled content paper can be substituted for virgin paper in many cases. For example, internal documents seldom need to be printed on virgin paper.

Implement strategies to use less paper (see over for suggestions).

Reuse paper before recycling it. Using both sides will halve your paper bill. If care is taken when loading machines, many office machines such as faxes and printers can easily use paper already printed on one side. Note pads can be made from used paper.

More about using the WRAPP way >>

Recover

What a waste!

About 600,000 tonnes of paper and cardboard are sent to landfill in NSW each year

Instead of sending paper to landfill, it can be taken out of the waste stream (recovered) and reused or recycled in some way. Good quality white office paper is extremely valuable and should be recovered whenever possible.

Paper can make up a large proportion of office waste. An audit of office waste will soon identify where good paper is being thrown out and how management of office waste can be improved to increase recovery rates. See WRAPP Facts: Doing an audit or contact the Resource NSW WRAPP Officers for information on how to do a simple waste audit.

Contamination (i.e. recyclable paper being ruined by contaminants such as food scraps) means that the paper can’t be recycled and is sent to landfill instead. Separate bins for paper and other wastes can reduce contamination and needless waste of paper. Educating staff and cleaning contractors about office waste separation and recycling systems is essential.

More about recovering the WRAPP way >>

Remake

Recovered paper can be turned back into recycled content office paper. (Sometimes virgin pulp may need to be added for strength.)

Mixed paper and cardboard is turned into cardboard and other less valuable paper products such as tissue paper.

A number of paper and stationery manu-facturers supply recycled content paper to the NSW Government. By buying recycled content paper and stationery products, NSW Government agencies support the development of local markets for products made from recovered paper.