8 Tips to Reduce Your Office Footprint

1.  Rationalize your office automation

2.  Reduce Paper Waste – Start printing on both sides of a sheet

3.  Reduce Paper Waste – Prevent uncollected printouts

4.  Reduce Paper Waste – Digitally archive documents

5.  Reduce Paper Waste – Use recycled or sustainable paper and recycle paper

6.  Reduce Power Use – Power Save mode

7.  Reduce Land Fill – Toner consumable products recycling

8.  Reduce Land Fill – Machine recycling

1. Rationalize your office automation

There is no longer a need to buy and run individual printers, photocopiers, scanners and faxes – a multifunctional printer can do it all for you. By consolidating your office equipment with an MFP you’ll reduce electricity, toner, waste materials and, ultimately reduce your bottom line costs.

2. Reduce Paper Waste – Start printing on both sides of a sheet

It’s simple but effective: set ‘duplex’ as your default preference for all your office printers and copiers. By printing on both sides of a sheet you’ll reduce paper usage by as much as 50%. 

3. Reduce Paper Waste – Prevent uncollected printouts

Everyone gets annoyed when they see uncollected and forgotten printouts on the office printer and MFP. One way to prevent this is by using Ricoh’s Enhanced Locked Print (ELP) feature. ELP means that when a document is sent to print, it is stored on the printer and will not be printed until it is ‘unlocked’ by a user at the device. Punch in a user code, or make your staff ultra efficient by enabling them to release jobs with a simple proxy card swipe. ELP will not only reduce paper waste, but it will also increase your organization’s security as well.

4. Reduce Paper Waste – Digitally archive documents

By using Laserfiche technology you can eliminate the need of accessing hard copy documents. Instead of reproducing and storing hard copies of documents, you scan them and use soft copies. All records are archived electronically, alleviating the need to print and store paper documents, with the added advantage of having a fully searchable archive repository. You can then offer your clients the option of receiving electronic invoices and statements. 

5. Reduce Paper Waste – Use recycled or sustainable paper and recycle paper

Embark on an office policy to only use either recycled paper or paper that is certified as sustainable. There are different certifications available, including the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Program for Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and ISO 14001. 

Contract with a paper recycling service. Then embed paper recycling ‘wheely’ bins for each department and empower each employee with their own paper recycling box.

6. Reduce Power Use – Power Save mode

Make it a mandatory policy in your office to have every office printer on power save mode when it sits idle for 20 minutes. 

And to ensure your office remains efficient use Ricoh’s Quick Start-up (QSU) Technology, for a quick recovery from energy-saving mode, allowing users to output and pick up prints whenever they need to.

7. Reduce Land Fill – Toner consumable products recycling

By joining Ricoh's Toner Bottles and Cartridges Recycling Program, you can be assured that 100% of used toner bottles and cartridges will be refilled or recycled. Simply call Ricoh Customers Service hotline to collect when they delivered the new set of toner bottles or cartridges. It is totally free. 

8. Reduce Land Fill – Machine recycling

As a responsible manufacturer and Green Office Partner, all the used machines collected from the customers are taken back to the Ricoh Environmental Technical Centre in Kwai Chung for checking. Selected used machines will be disassembled, cleaned, reconditioned and tested for quality to ensure it is up to standard. Currently around 60% of the used machines collected are being reconditioned and resold to developing countries every year. This way, machines life-cycle is being prolonged.

To facilitate materials recycling, Ricoh manufactured products are designed with up to 87% recyclable components. All the materials used in machine production meet the RoHS safety requirements with no hazardous substances. Special marking labels are put on the machines for easy separation of plastics materials. Plastics parts are then sent to environmentally certified recycler in China for recycling. Out of the used plastics materials, 99% is being recycled and used as raw materials for making new plastic products and only 1% will be disposed.  This can significantly reduce the amount of waste dumped in the landfill.

Page Top