Office paper a good place to start sustainable practices

By Melinda Dudley, Pilot & Today

Published July 31, 2008 at 8:16 p.m.
Updated August 1, 2008 at 1:53 a.m.

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The days of recycled paper being pricey, gray and notorious for gumming up office machines are long gone.

These days, high-quality sustainable office products are widely available at competitive prices, and paper is no exception, according to Kathy Stokes, president of PostNet, a Denver-based printing-services company.

"The tables have turned," she told dozens of businesspeople who gathered this week for the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association's quarterly Sustainable Business Luncheon.

The luncheon's topic examined how to reduce business paper usage, from easy tips such as printing on both sides to more technical fixes such as computerized document archiving.

While customers used to have limited options for recycled and sustainable paper products, today, 84 percent of paper sold in the U.S. comes from certified sustainable forests, Stokes said.

For businesses just starting to incorporate sustainable practices, limiting paper usage and buying better paper products is an easy place to begin, she said.

The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year, said Lyn Halliday, president of Environmental Solutions Unlimited. "We all use it, and we all can reduce it," she said.

The Sustainable Steamboat Business Program, launched in 2007, is up to 43 members, with companies ranging in size from two to thousands of employees.

In the coming weeks, the program will launch an online forum, where businesses can trade advice outside of the program's quarterly networking luncheons.

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