How Can Your School District Save Paper?
Posted on January 29, 2010 by
Over here at the Greenists I tend to cover the school angle. For me, the challenge of making things greener at the middle school where I work usually involves using technology to reduce the amount of paper we waste. Over the last five years I have campaigned for all of the faculty and staff to stop ripping through case after case of that white gold of schools: copy paper. When I tell you I see people on a DAILY BASIS making hundreds of copies, realizing there was a mistake on the original and then throwing away every single copy I am really not even kidding.
It gets kind of depressing.
If you would like your school district to stop wasting paper as well, here are a few ideas to suggest to your administration:
- Have the administrative assistants email attendance reports every morning rather than printing them out.
- Instead of having students print out papers they can save them to a shared folder on the school network. That way, you can view and grade their work without having hard copies.
- If this is not possible, teach kids about the importance of Print Preview rather than printing five copies of a paper before they get it right.
- Project your directions on your white board or smart board rather than printing out individual sheets of directions for students.
- Encourage your administration to limit the amount of paper they put in the copy room on a daily basis.
My principal has commented that just by implementing these simple tips we’ve saved over $4,000 yearly on printer and copy paper. I was tempted to ask him when I’d be seeing that in a bonus check, but I managed to stop myself in time.
One more tip: principals do not like when you tease them about money.
You’re welcome.
$4000?? Wow! Great job, NPW. Now if only that were enough to reopen the library, right?
Good suggestions, I’ll pass them on to the Modern Love Machine who is a teacher.
As a School Counselor who teaches 4 grades in my Elementary School, I do have to make a lot of copies. However, lots of the things I need copies of are just going to be thrown out by the kids when they get home, so instead of copying for ALL the classes, I make one classroom set and ask the children not to write their names on it. Then I can reuse it for the next class, and if I’m really on the ball and can find the storage…for next year! I also try to laminate things that I know I will use year after year (like color copies and games) so that I don’t have to reprint them the next year. Also making front and back copies can save a substantial amount of paper. As much as I love working in a school – the huge amount of waste that comes from them disgusts me. Don’t even get me started on the hot lunch trays (made of styrofoam) and the hundreds of sporks that get tossed everyday. Not to mention, our cafeteria even individually bags the apples in plastic baggies…that’s almost 200 plastic apple bags a day! Okay, I started….