Paper Tiger in the Office Jungle

Paper Tiger in the Office Jungle

Anyone who does any kind of office work in any way, is bound to be familiar with it. Annual folders, monthly folders, customer folders, folders for accounts payable and accounts receivable. Folders for delivery notes, offers, and general correspondence, for bank, finance, and various other folders. To sum up, at the end of the year it is – not only with us! – again high time to get ready again. We prepare for the new year and its paper floods, and, of course, we need new folders (for example, memo). And the files for this year will be stored in the archives. A lot of paper and cardboard, and thus, a lot of wood!

And all these papers that have to be archived, are by no means the end of the story. The amount of paper that (sometimes even unread!) becomes “waste paper” every day is a real flood. Daily mail, advertising brochures, catalogues, leaflets, flyers, often sent unsolicited, and of course everything in a single envelope. Mountains of paper that lie in your mailbox every day. In fact, paper is by far the most extensive consumable material in the office. It accounts for 60 – 70% of all office waste. Reason enough to take a closer look.

“Number acrobatics” over a cup of coffee

It is not so easy to determine water and energy consumption, waste water pollution and emissions for the entire paper production process. Because every paper and every production site has different standards.

But in any case, recycled paper is better for us and our environment than paper made from primary fibers (=that means, newly produced paper from „fresh“ wood). Here are a few average figures: If you opt for a 500-sheet package of recycled paper (2.5 kg), you save 5.5 kg of wood. And if you immediately decide on a pallet of paper, i.e. 100,000 sheets or 500 kg, and then choose recycled paper, about two and a half full-grown trees with an average weight of 440 kg remain. In short, this quickly turns into a whole forest.

Oh yes, and if you want to let all these arithmetical tasks go through your head in peace, for example over a cup of coffee or tea. For the production of 1 kg recycled paper you need the energy of 2 kWh, in contrast to primary fibre paper which costs about 5 kWh. So: 3 kWh more. And what does that mean exactly? Because pictures are usually easier to remember: with the 3 kWh that can be saved with recycled paper, you can heat so much water that you can make about 210 cups of coffee or tea!

“Blue Angel“. Guaranteed reliable recycled paper. Yes, 100% recycled

Clearly, we cannot completely do without paper and “related” office supplies, such as folders. But you have the choice. Choose recycled paper. It’s a long time ago since that it looked all sad and grey. On request, you can even choose “high white” or – even better and highly recommended – “natural white”. This not only looks chic and elegant, and is more pleasant for the eyes and reading, but is also good for the environment. A very good, really recommendable orientation (not only for paper goods of all kinds!) offers the environmental label „Blauer Engel“ (“Blue Angel“).

The “Blue Angel“ labels recycled papers, whether as letterheads, envelopes, folders or folders, that are highly recommended for environmental reasons. This quality seal is awarded according to particularly strict criteria, which are always expertly checked and updated. And that means concretely:

– 100% recovered paper that contains at least 65% lower and medium grades of recovered paper.

– No chlorine, no optical brighteners, no halogenated bleaching agents and no other chemicals.

– Blue-Angel certified papers withstand every technical and qualitative comparison with conventional primary fibre papers in every respect. Always. Guaranteed. The service technician’s slogan “It’s due to the paper” for paper jams in printers no longer applies to recycled paper. Of course recycled paper can also be archived. And that according to service life class LDK 24-85 and DIN 6738:1999. This is considered “age-resistant”. Very important for the fiscal storage periods! In short, there is nothing better.

„Pham” – Print half as much!

Beyond the archive and the important things on paper “for eternity”, there are so many things how you can – quite simply! – improve your daily paper consumption.

1. Very important: No, you don’t have to print out everything you have in your electronic mailbox or on the Internet. Many things can remain well in the “digital archive“, and can also be found there quickly.

2. Set your printer to double-sided printing (duplex function) and double-sided copying. For many „texts in progress” this is sufficient in any case.

3. Clever green printing software ensures that blank pages and irrelevant information are not printed.

4. Paper that is printed on one side, and that is actually “no longer needed”, is well suited as note paper or for test printouts. DIN A4-size stacking boxes are helpful for proper stacking.

5. Brochures, catalogues, magazines, which you don’t actually read at all, you don’t even need to have them sent to you. Just stay in the distribution lists that really interest you. Sometimes “Back to sender” is also a clear signal.

“Save approx. 200 ml water, 2 g CO2 and 2 g wood per page: Please therefore only print when really necessary.” This is written on every e-mail and on every invoice that we send digitally. Check it out! Maybe over a cup of coffee. Or tea.