Photo Copying: Greening Myself Out of a Job
It’s time to get something off my chest: an idea that could protect entire forests, save millions – and get me fired.
What does paperless actually mean in today’s world? Despite increasingly living in a world where the electron is king – where even business cards are under threat – we still cling to our slivers of bleached, flattened wood pulp with an obsessive, needy love. We pretend that we’ve found an ingenious way to avoid turning pages, but after a while the flaws start to niggle and we revert back to our old, less sustainable ways.
And boy, do I know it. I work in a printing business during the daytime, servicing the needs of a nearby city and university. The latter is a big customer. And by big, I mean massive. Departmental teaching material, student photocopying – it’s endless.
I cannot convey to you how much paper we go through.
So my idea, then. It hinges around the surely undeniable fact that every modern student has (a) access to a computer, and (b) a mobile phone or digital camera (or phone-cameras, many of which now have 4-Megapixel+ resolutions).
And it’s very simple. Instead of photocopying, everyone takes photos.
Technologists can develop foldout A4-sized cameras specifically for academics to easily take snapshots of multiple pages. Students can apply for funding for these devices, along with eBook readers and more conventional camera equipment. Departments can produce all their reading material in a digital format, confident in the knowledge that everyone will be geared up to read it. And everyone will, because that will be the official line.
But – libraries will lose a lot of revenue. My workplace will probably go out of business. And they’ll blame me.
It’s a dilemma. What do you think?
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6 Comments
April 24th, 2009 at 6:21 am
I just read your idea for saving paper…I’m a college student from Washington State, and we have this program called “Blackboard” where all the teachers post the readings and assignments that we need during the school year. I think it would be wise to have the books (or chapters) scanned into the teacher’s computer that he/she wants us to read, then posted via Blackboard for everyone to download for the class. Teachers also post their powerpoint presentations on the site, which makes it easier to take notes when you can just see it all on the computer. The only problem with all computerized material is the computers don’t tend to last for more than an hour or two. But I think it’s a good start to be thinking less paper more wireless.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:45 am
I work at a CPA firm, which offers a “less paper” environment. First of all, let me just say that even with the best of intentions, people do need paper. You can’t simply read off of a glowing screen all the time, and take your notes in Adobe. I would need multiple, thin layered screens to do that, which I could stack like paper, and in the end, I think paper would be more environmentally friendly than that. So, even though we don’t use paper files, we still print lots of stuff out so we can have hard copies that are easy on the eyes and can be written on with pens and pencils. Archaic, I know.
However, even just committing to being a less paper environment makes a huge difference in the amount of needless paper we don’t use, and also has set everyone up to recycle (each of us has a paper recycle box next to our desks, which is picked up once a week by maintenance for shredding and recycling). I think that universities need to start making similar commitments – they are filled with old school professors and deans who don’t like much change. However, I think that their clients (the students) are young enough to want to enforce such a change, which would better the environment, and decrease the amount of stuff they have to store and cart around.
For your company, you could think to use your copiers as scanners instead, and also offer other services that would help in a less paper environment for the university, such as computers with the current versions of Adobe which allow people to use documents (sort of) like paper. Both could be rented out for a fee. This would help keep your job!
However, I do think the printing business is a dying breed – and though it’s really not because of the environment, but actually because of technology – universities are probably some of the few clients left who actually really use lots of these services.
Sorry, I think I just wrote a short novella.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
I have seem many people having a hard time going paperless on their bills and statements. Why is it so hard to them to see the value in it! Great post!!!!
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April 25th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Personally, I think it is brilliant. We need to think this direction. I am the parent of 2 college students and the books alone cost a fortune. My husband is also in school, online, and taking classes in that format alone saves lots of money and LOTS of wasted paper. Something to think about. Our world has to start thinking more creatively like this.
I am so glad I found you site. What an inspiration.
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April 28th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Jasmine -
Blackboard sounds a great application. We had something similar although much less advanced when I was at Uni a few years back – lecture notes and required reading lists were available on a special departmental Intranet. But we never had scanned reading in there, which would have been great (and much less frustrating in tracking down the right books at the library).
Thanks for stopping by!
April 28th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Thegreenestcpa -
Great comments, thank you.
And I like novellas. 
I agree, people still need paper, or something that is as portable and user-friendly as paper – which means paper (there’s no way technology is going to catch up on that one any time soon, barring some major technology innovations).
And there’s still a very real problem with digital displays being less easy on the eyes, and…being too *different*. For example, a problem is the way we read a page: we usually need the whole page open in front of us, our gaze jumping around – whereas screens scroll downwards, and so it gets in the way of our time-tested ways of thinking when we have to scroll down a page. It’s clumsy, non-intuitive stuff for our brains. So we prefer offline reading.
(Yet there’s the problem with new products: they need people to invest in them with their cash and word-of-mouth. Without that period of putting up with the shortcomings, paper-replacing technology couldn’t get off the ground commercially).
Until these are truly solved, yep, e-reading is a poor second to paper. But as you note, the currently budding generations are embracing new technology better, and they’re more eco-aware about it (we’ve had plenty of students asking about how sustainable our paper sources are). I just wish that in my current workplace, they were more vocal…
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