There are some shocking statistics related to paper waste in the average UK office. Needless to say, some businesses by their very nature are incredibly paper heavy – examples that immediately spring to mind include legal firms and accountants. They are not alone though and most companies in the UK “could do better” with thousands of tonnes of paper needlessly wasted in print every year. Below are some shocking statistics highlighting that even with a little effort, any company could save money, resource and increase efficiencies.
- The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. Thats 20 reams of paper (500 sheets per ream) or 4 boxes of paper in total with an estimated cost of £10 per box.
- 6800 of the 10000 sheets used are considered to be wasted.
- Reasons for the high wastage include printing emails unnecessarily, failing to use the duplex function, printing duplicates and forgetting about documents left on the printer.
- Global consumption of paper has increased by almost half since 1980
- Every person in the UK consumes the equivalent of 4.48 trees per year
- 40% of people describe themselves as “paper people” They like to have the paper in their hands rather than looking at a screen.
- 77% of those asked in a survey conducted by Loudhouse said their print volumes had increased or stayed the same in the past twelve months.
- 76% of respondents admitted to printing non work related documents in the office, with 6% printing out non-work related documents every day.
- The United States alone, which has less than 5% of the world’s population, consumes 30% of the world’s paper.
- Over 40% of wood pulp goes toward the production of paper.
- Printing and writing paper equals about one-half of U.S. paper production.
- The costs of using paper in the office can run 13 to 31 times the cost of purchasing the paper in the first place!
- Citigroup, a large financial services company, determined that if each employee used double-sided copying to conserve just one sheet of paper each week, the firm would save £700,000 each year.
- Bank of America cut its paper consumption by 25% in two years by increasing the use of on-line forms and reports, e-mail, double-sided copying, and lighter-weight paper.
