Can You Print It For Me?

Most offices in the World Trade Center were equipped with the latest computers, storage devices and broadband connections. Yet when volunteer Robert Galinsky showed up to help clear the site on Sept. 12, his crew felt overwhelmed not by electronic debris so much as by paper: "printouts of e-mails, employee review sheets, interoffice memos, training guides." Galinsky, 36, a multimedia artist, recalls that "we dug through tons and tons of it." And there are similar volumes of paper, stored right alongside the latest PCs and servers, in offices around the world.

It turns out that the more widely computers are deployed in businesses, the more paper gets used. In 1997 office workers around the world churned through 150 million tons of paper, more than double the amount used in 1980. In U.S. offices alone, paper consumption jumped 12% between 1995 and 2000--a period when computer use at work increased almost 5%. The result is not just that more trees are cut down and more money is spent on 8 1/2-by-11 bond. The far bigger costs come in lost productivity. U.S. businesses spend more than $25 billion a year filing, storing and retrieving paper documents.

In his landmark work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn observed that as a new technology gets widely adopted, it often makes things worse for a while, as people spend time and money on both the old technology and the new one. That's certainly the case today, as we make the transition from paper to digital records. In fact, in a perverse way, our growing paper waste demonstrates the digital revolution's success in getting more and better information into the hands of more workers.

Information technology managers at 150 U.S. companies reported a spike in printing after they opened access to their firms' data networks, according to The Myth of the Paperless Office by Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper. Long e-mail messages and attachments tend to be printed, causing about a 40% jump in paper consumption when an office first gets e-mail. But e-mail also cuts down on workers' use of expensive overnight mail and courier services.

Why not just read e-mail attachments on the PC? Paper is easier on the eyes than a computer monitor. That may change as technologies like ClearType render electronic text easier to read. But for now, says Sellen, "the office we are moving toward is not an office that uses less paper, it's an office that keeps less paper--one where paper is a temporary resource."

The shortcomings of digital systems also promote a lot of paper waste. Many companies' computer systems crash often enough that workers don't trust them. They print and file anything they can't afford to lose. Some firms also foolishly try to save money on digital storage by restricting e-mail archiving and other ways of storing digital documents. Workers in such companies print and file a lot more paper, at great cost.

In the past, businesses like law firms and banks didn't dare toss out documents for fear that they might need them in a lawsuit. But inexpensive scanners now let companies save the data without using paper. Since Sept. 11, many companies are creating electronic copies of documents and storing them off-site. Iron Mountain, a data-storage company with headquarters in Boston, will save computer tapes or provide online backup for as little as $250 a month.

At Personal Financial Consultants in San Ramon, Calif., you won't find any paper files. Co-owners Sharon and Loren Kayfetz keep all their customers' information on computer, with multiple backup discs stored at the office and in their home. They have so dramatically reduced their need for office space that they'll give up their lease when it next expires. "I think I can have a much more profitable business and serve my clients more efficiently by having their documents scanned in and accessible anytime, no matter where I am," says Sharon, who now gives lectures on how to go paperless. "No fire, no flood, no terrible Sept. 11 tragedy would have done anything to my documents."

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