The changes may seem small and insignificant, but they can go a long way in terms of cutting down on paper usage.
There is a lot of paper being used on a day to day basis and all of this paper can be quite harmful to the environment. You may be surprised just how much paper you use every day. There are easy ways that you can cut down on your paper usage, save some money and even lessen the amount of clutter you accumulate in the process.
Cancel Your Subscriptions
While you may like sitting at the kitchen table with the newspaper and a cup of coffee, the same information can be found online for free and without paper having to be used. In some cases, the news on a certain story may even be more up to the minute so you’re not left behind on details that weren’t included in the newspaper. The same can be said of magazine subscriptions - many of which have turned online already.
Opt for Electronic Billing
If you get four paper bills a month that’s already a minimum of forty-eight pieces of paper used during the course of a year. That doesn’t count the paper envelope it came in either. Opt for getting your bills sent to you online to avoid any unnecessary paper usage.
Use Both Sides
If you print something, such as a coupon, that comes out unreadable, flip the paper over and use the other side. It’s a waste of paper to barely use one side, have a completely good other side, but throw the paper out anyway. In most cases, it won’t matter if the one side is messy as long as the other side has readable information. Also, if you are printing multiple pages, just print them on both sides instead of them being single sided.
Other Options for Note Taking
Between to-do notes and leaving notes for someone else, all of these little pieces of paper can add up to quite a large amount. Instead, consider using a dry erase board for reminders for yourself or notes for someone else. You can also leave a voice memo on your phone of what needs to be done or put it on a file on your computer. There are also plenty of online applications that allow you to do the same thing. Not only will it cut down on paper usage, but the notes would be a lot more difficult to lose.
The changes may seem small and insignificant, but they can go a long way in terms of cutting down on paper usage.