Monday, March 11, 2013

Charging Scratches Itchy Printer Finger

In "Global warming and our itchy printer fingers" Tom Lucas (Online Opinion, 6 March 2013) describes rage brought on by seeing uncollected printout by the office photocopier (I assume this is a multi-function device which prints as well as photocopies).

There are some simple measures which can help reduce paper use. One is to require staff to input a code at the printer, before their document will print. Any documents left in the queue for more than an hour or so are deleted unprinted. Another technique which is to have a quota and charge for material use. Even where real money is not charged, it still changes staff behavior when they know their resource use is being tabulated and reported.

This is a topic my students address in the course "ICT Sustainability", where I teach how to use less energy and materials, through better use of technology

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