Office workers print 22 pages every day

 

Gallery

By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 15 Oct 2007 at 13:06

British offices create 120 billion print-outs every year - enough to construct a tower of paper 8,000 miles high, according to new research. The average office employee contributes 22 pages per day to this total, much of which is an unnecessary waste.

"Office printing continues to be out of control with very few companies having any transparency on their print costs," says Paul Parrish, managing director of Fujitsu Siemens Computers IT Product Services. "This is compounded by the fact that there is a general lack of guidelines for employees around printing practices and most people readily admit to not really thinking twice about hitting the 'print' option on an email or document."

The report, conducted on behalf of Fujitsu Siemens, shows that the paperless office is still far from a reality. Over half of workers admitted to accidentally printing the same document several times on occasion, and 43% admitted picking up other people's print-outs, inadvertently causing them to re-print pages.

Nearly a quarter of office workers admitted to not giving much thought to printing documents, and 13% said they do not worry at all, as long as they recycle the pages after use. These numbers reveal a carefree attitude towards printing in the UK, with not enough thought given to the environmental and financial impacts.