Little things really can mean a lot

This item has been on our "take a closer look" list for a while, and if you missed it, we think it's something you should think about, too.

Joann Klimkiewicz of the Hartford Courant came up with a great story last month about how making one small change in the way we do things can add up to real savings and real environmental benefits. Here's what they call in the newspaper business the "nut grafs":

"And so was born ChangeTheMargins.com, an Internet movement beseeching paper printers everywhere to whittle their default margin settings to .75 inches.

"Sounds insignificant. But the Green Destiny Council at Pennsylvania State University recently determined that if they could get page margins reduced to .75 inches campus-wide, it would amount to a savings of more than 45,000 reams of paper a year, and more than $120,000. Using that margin setting, the report said, could render a standard 100-page document to just 81 pages.

"Applying those settings to one ton of paper would save 19 reams, or 1.14 trees, according to Krinsky's calculations off the council's study. With about 5.4 million tons of office paper consumed annually, the new margin settings, according to Krinsky, could save about 6.15 million trees."

Most of us use Microsoft Word to write letters, reports and memos, and changing margins is easy to do. Just click on "File", then "Page Setup", then "Margins" and change the margins to .75 inches.

One of the most common questions we get at CRRA is how to get offices and businesses to recycle more. Many times, the answer involves getting a landlord or property manager to pay his trash hauler for a separate recycling pickup, which costs more money. But this is something everyone can do to conserve natural resources.

Does your office or school recycle? If not, have you tried to start a recycling program? Tell us about it!

And if you'd like to know more, check our post from Dec. 7, 2007, about educational programs for businesses.