We live in a world of very resource-intensive living. Electricity is used for the most basic of tasks, there are more and more trees cut down every year, and waste seems a natural part of life. Along with all that waste can come a fair bit of guilt, even if there are no immediate consequences, and the wasted paper, printer toner and printer ink that comes along with certain printing behaviors is actually a major source of guilt for many Canadians. Today we look at 5 ways you can green your printing habits, cut the guilt and preserve the planet for future generations.

Buy a duplex printer, and ...

Printers with the capability for duplex are actually fairly common ... but it seems that people simply don’t use the function. The technology is not well established, and there are often problems with this feature. You need to not only buy a printer that supports duplex printing, but one that will do it quickly and conveniently enough that you actually use the feature.

Start a re-usable paper stack
Reducing your usage and re-using what you can are preferable to recycling sheets of paper that are accidentally printed. So, start a stack of paper that has a single web address on one side, nothing but a document header just one sentence and re-use it either for notes and scrap, or printing non-critical documents.

Recycle your printer cartridges

There are quite a few depot points across the country that take used printer ink cartridges. The plastic from these can’t be recycled along with ordinary plastics, so start a collection and take them down to the recycling station once you have a few.

Use Draft Mode
Don’t print everything on high quality - this will save on printer ink, which is both environmentally friendly and wallet friendly!

Take stock

Pay attention to the type of stock you use in your printer. Cotton, hemp and bamboo papers are all more sustainable that standard printer paper. You may have to experiment with print settings a little, but you'll feel much better about yourself! Order ahead online and you won’t be tempted to run out and grab the first tree-killing ream you see in the grocery store.