Day Ninety-Seven - Doublin' Up

Using Both Sides of the Paper

Paper is so cheap, isn't it? We treat it like it's garbage, rip it into pieces, crumple it up, throw it away. We forget that at one time it was a tall, strong, living tree sitting happily in a forest somewhere -- providing shelter for birds and squirrels and converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. We need to start treating paper with the respect it deserves. If a tree died so that I could jot down "eggs, milk and a gallon of milk" on something other than a slate tablet, I'm going to use every last inch (or side) of it.

Of course, if I can't be totally anal about it, it won't happen. So I set put one of my cheap plastic paper organizers downstairs near my laptop and printer. Now, whenever I'm done with one side of the sheet, it goes in the "half-spent" paper pile. This pile will now be flipped upside down and run back through the printer for garb orders, mapquest directions, grocery lists, etc. (Yes I DO print out my grocery lists -- it's a blank template with headings for each product type in Kroger's store, so that my list is organized by aisle. STILL think I'm not Obsessive-Compulsive?!?).


Savings:

A very straight-forward 50% reduction in the amount of copy paper I use. That would be roughly two reams per year, or 1000 sheets. I can also add in any standard-sized flyers that get stuffed in my "community mailbox". Hell, they might as well be used for something, right?


Difficulty Level: 1 out of 5

The key, for me, is to have a place to store it. If it just sat on my desk in an unwieldy pile, it would drive me insane and I'd never stick with it. However, having the little tray (which I already owned) makes the difference between failure and success. Well, that and figuring out which way is "up" in my printer.