New Printer Capabilities Encourage Conservation
Sep. 18, 2006 by smachuga
New Printer Capabilities Encourage Conservation
Printing on both sides of a page conserves natural resources and expense. Central Purchasing and ITS are in the process of rolling out a fleet of new Ricoh printers. Among the many capabilities of these new printers is the ability to easily and reliably print on both sides of the page.
ITS, Project$ave and the planet Earth encourage you to:
- Print only when necessary (most documents can be distributed and stored electronically).
- Whenever possible use two-sided (duplex) printing.
PC Two-Sided Printing Instructions (General instructions for Ricoh) **
For Individual Documents
From the print dialogue box, click on Properties/Preferences button.
From the Duplex drop-down, Choose “Open to Left”.
(more than likely you will want to experiment with the various duplex options)For Printer Default
From the Startup Menu, go to Printers and Faxes.
Double Click on the Printer model you wish to change.
From the “printer” menu, choose properties.
From the “General” tab, choose “Print Preferences”.
From the Duplex drop-down, Choose “Open to Left”.
(more than likely you will want to experiment with the various duplex options)
Mac Two-Sided Printing Instructions (General Instructions for Ricoh) **
For Individual Documents
From the print dialogue box, change the Copies and Pages pop-up to Layout. In the section that says “Two-Sided” choose “Long-edged binding”.For Printer Default
From the print dialogue box, change the Copies and Pages pop-up to Layout. In the section that says “Two-Sided” choose “Long-edged binding”. To save this setting, set the Presets pop-up to “Save As…” and give the setting a name (Duplex seems appropriate). Then click Print to print the document. You must print to save the Preset as the default.
** If these instructions do not work, please contact
Did you know that Wesleyan averages 1,000,000 copies and printed pages a
month? That is a lot of paper and we can cut costs and help the
environment by duplexing. For example, if we duplex 20% of the 1,000,000
pages, we can save $425 from using 100,000 fewer sheets of paper. Over a
year, the savings total $5,100 from 1,200,000 fewer sheets. This also
saves up to 15 trees.
less printing also means less electricity used by the printer, and also less toner used. saving trees is a wonderful thing. the best way to save trees is to purchase recycled paper, that way we do not destroy trees for any paper used. I believe it is important for Wesleyan to “walk the walk” on recycling and only purchase recycled printing paper. it may be slightly more expensive, but the more recycled products are purchased, the less expensive they will become.
I have discussed the purchasing of recycled paper with our representative from W.B. Mason, and the key to affordability is buying in quantity. The E&ES department made the commitment to buying recycled some time ago, but if the university as a whole made that commitment, W.B. Mason could offer it at a lower price. We have had no issues whatsoever with paper jamming using their recycled product.
For some models of the older Ricoh, including ours, duplex printing has been available and has been used for some time, with great results.
I think the choice of first Technology of the Month is highly appropriate, as are the first two responses. Wesleyan should make higest-recycled content paper its default paper, and users should make double-sided copies their default as well. I will point out an added benefit of double-sided copying to my colleagues: research articles take up only half as much room in filing cabinets!
If you’re printing a document that is more than 2 pages and you don’t mind reading smaller text, you can also use the “Layout>2 Pages Per Sheet” option in the Properties/Preferences window. Combined with the duplex option, this cuts your paper usage by 75%!
Wherever possible, Wesleyan should support the true “paperless office” practice. Instead of printing paper copies of meeting agendas, we should (where appropriate) project the agenda from an LCD projector.
Ravi practices the “paperless office” rigorously; I try to emulate this (less successfully, I’m afraid). I print as few documents as possible and instead rely on digitized versions wherever possible.
Perhaps the next Technology of the Month should be a post from Ravi about his techniques for working in a paperless environment.