Reducing and Reusing

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Green  Green Printing Guidelines

Reduce your paper use:

  • Lower consumption by emailing drafts, notes, and newsletters instead of printing them.
  • Use listserv discussion groups as a way to communicate. 
  • Make your own notepads using scrap paper.
  • Edit documents online instead of printing drafts.
  • Reduce your margins when printing.
No goldenrod, fluorescents, or bright-colored paper:
  • One important way to reduce waste is to print on recyclable paper.
  • Many people don’t know that goldenrod, fluorescents, and bright colors are not recyclable because of the strong dyes used to make them.
  • For your next meeting or event, please choose paper that is recyclable.
Printer use:
  • Use recycled toner cartridges for laser printers.
  • Print double sided and on 100% post-consumer paper.
  • Turn off the printer when not in use.
Green  Stop Junk Mail
 
Cut down on junk mail!
 
Approximately 90 million trees are used each year to make paper for unsolicited mailings.  It would take roughly 340,000 garbage trucks to haul all the junk mail in the U.S. to landfills and incinerators each year. 
 
Here’s how to stop junk mail:
Credit Card Mailings. You can call a single number to get your name and address removed from the mailing lists circulated by four major credit card agencies.
 
Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688).
 
The number works 24-hours a day. You will be prompted to give your full name, address, telephone number and social security number.  When given options, press 3 to have your name removed permanently, or press 1 to have your name removed for just two years.
 
Unwanted Catalogs. Take a minute to call the 1-800 number on the back of any unwanted magazines or catalogs.  Ask to be removed from the mailing list.
 
Sign Up for the Mail Preference Service to reduce junk mail.
 
Write the Direct Marketing Association and register with their Mail Preference Service as an indication that you do not want to be contacted by solicitors.

Write to:  Mail Preference Service, c/o Direct Marketing Association, P.O .Box 643, Carmel, NY 10512.
 
In the letter or on a 3 1/2 x 5" postcard, include the date, your name, address and signature, and write "Please register my name with the Mail Preference Service".
 
For more information on stopping junk mail visit http://www.newdream.org/junkmail/index.php.
 
*Some of the information on this page has been adapted from the "green" pages at University of Colorado at Boulder.