Upon inspecting a piece of paper recently, I wondered how did they get it so impossibly thin? I'm talking about your standard office paper: 8.5" by 11", 20 pound, bright white. Very flat. Sharp edges. Smooth surface. Careful investigation revealed something that is often overlooked: paper has two sides, and you can use them both!But seriously, it can be tough to find a double-sided printer, so you'll often end up with page after page of single-sidedness. Though I'm a big fan of doing things electronically, there are times with printing is necessary. In those cases, and in the cases when it's not possible to print on both sides, instead of throwing away (or recycling) the paper once you're done reading it, save it for scrap paper. I've been doing this for about 10 years now. In fact, in my stock pile of half-used paper, I have some documents from many years ago. Whenever I need to do some quick scratching, I pull out one of these babies and use the unloved side. Once the paper is completely filled, I toss it in the bin for recycling.
Another thought here is to force your printer to double-side. Well, maybe force isn't the right word. How about trick? This takes some experimenting. It works by printing all of the odd (or even) pages. This can be found in the printer settings. Once printed, put the pages back in the paper tray. You got to figure out the correct orientation. Then print all of the even pages (or odd if you did even first). And viola! Double-sided.
Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Lightmatter_paperwork.jpg
3 comments:
I must report that you are true to your word. I've just received a magazine from you, and you clearly re-used the envelope. Good work. And thanks for the magazine--can't wait to read it!
Sarah
Nice entry...paper is double-sided, isn't it? We go through SOOOO much paper at work, printing out medical records and copying charts, etc...it does all end up in the recycling bin, but it would be nice if there was a way to squeeze a little more usage out of each sheet. When I need to jot something down in the office, I'll grab a piece out of the recycling bin, but because of the sensitive nature of the patient information contained on most of the sheets, they really can't be taken outside, or even into another part of the hospital. Maybe we could shred them and use the scraps to throw a medical-records-ticker-tape parade.
--Em
I love your ingenuity. Wikipedia has some very interesting info regarding ticker-tape parades. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticker-tape_parade
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