Paper waste draining company resources, patience

While paper is a major contributor to environmental issues, with over 5,260,000 tons of paper waste generated in the United States alone in 2010, it is also burdening businesses, forcing them to expend time and money struggling to handle it in efficient ways. According to a recent infographic from Mashable, the average employee uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year – about $80 a year per employee. For medical offices, schools and other organizations that use even more, the costs can triple. Businesses need to get a handle on their paper usage now, or suffer in the long term.

To really get underneath paper waste and begin to turn around the negative effects it can have on operations, businesses can invest in document management solutions. By making the move to digital information, companies can embrace paperless initiatives and not only help the environment but save time and money on paper, printers, ink, shredders, filing cabinets and more.

According to the news source, the average company has a 150 page employee handbook. For 50 employees, this equals six copies of the complete works of Shakespeare, but only takes up about 7 percent of a four gigabyte flash drive. A single terabyte hard drive could save a business over 500 million sheets of paper – and that's if it is only used for storing records, personnel paperwork, employee handbooks and other things that are traditionally printed, much of which is already stored on a hard drive.

In order to embrace paperless operations and really begin to turn the tide of paper around, a business will need to not only reduce the amount it currently prints and distributes, but what it has stored as well. With document conversion services, a business can begin converting its archived records into a digital information management system, improve organization and ultimately save time and money.

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