reusing paper

In the bio-sci library there are instructions posted on the printers explaining how to reload paper that has been printed on one side and left lying around. This is an easy way to reuse old paper and save new paper from being wasted. Do you think similar instructions could be posted in Lily and Perkins librarys? It seems that e-reserves could easily be printed on re-used paper, which there is no shortage of.

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: This is a tough one, with, like the paper, two sides of the issue. A lot of people do reuse paper, or simply print on both sides, and seem to have little trouble. On the other hand, people in charge of maintaining staff and public clusters point to the high incidence of paper jams. Some of the jams are so serious that the printers require expensive repairs, costing far more than the value of the paper saved. Answer Person will pass your suggestion and this response on to the relevant parties.

2/20/01–Further Response from the Library’s Systems Support Staff:

The practice [of sending paper back through again] is recommended against by Hewlett Packard. Unless great care is taken to preserve the “recycled” paper in original condition, it will very likely result in paper jams. In practice, this has been found repeatedly to be the source of paper jams resulting from torn bits of paper being “lost” inside the inner workings of the printer. In cases where a printer is, essentially, a “personal” printer (one or two persons who are responsible for putting paper back into a printer and then watching to see that it works correctly,) one can sometimes get away with this practice. In the case of Perkins or Lilly, it is a highly unworkable, unreliable use of the resources. Printers with paper lost inside are rarely out of service for less that two days, most likely approaching a week of unavailability. In the case where availability of the resource is so important, it is critical to minimize the opportunity for avoidable failure. Encourage the judicious use of the print button rather than place the printers at risk. In this case, the appropriate use of the “Reduce, reuse, recycle” philosophy is to 1.) reduce wasted paper by avoiding unnecessary printing, 2.) reuse unneeded printouts by using it as scratch paper and 3.) recycle unneeded printouts by placing them in the appropriate Duke Recycles receptacle.”

One thought on “reusing paper”

Comments are closed.