Paper Prevention Case Study

• Sector: Administration.
• Name of Partners: Limerick County Council & the University of Limerick.
• Location: County Limerick.

Aims of the project:

Both partner organisations are important to the local economy and would occupy a leading position in the community. Both organisations are committed to reducing their impact on the environment and the goal of this project was to reduce their paper consumption by 20%.

Project Description:

The project aimed to gather baseline data on paper consumption within both organisations, to raise awareness about the impact excessive consumption of paper can have on the environment and in so doing change behaviour. The project also sought to improve the capture of paper in the recycling stream in UL.

Both organisations carried out a series of environmental audits to identify waste prevention and reduction opportunities. These audits focused on how paper was being used by both organisations and where possible attempted to identify work practices that resulted in excessive consumption of paper.

Raising awareness was a key component of the project within both organisations. Informing staff of changes was one aspect but more importantly seeking their views on improvements that could be made within their own sectors was equally important.

The main component of the project was the altering of equipment to default to duplex print documents coupled with an acceptance that duplex printing was now accepted as standard for both organisations.

Achievements and lessons:

Both organisations embraced the challenge of the project and have very good results with UL achieving a 32% reduction in paper consumption.

LCC achieved a 15% reduction but are on target to more than double that reduction during 2009 as new copying equipment was rolled out towards the end of 2008 which defaults to duplex print. An additional component of the project for LCC was to encourage more electronic communication particularly in the form of eMeetings.

For UL, an additional 50 tonnes of paper waste are now recycled from the campus every year, prior to this project this paper would have been landfilled.

Both organisations have successfully raised awareness about waste and waste prevention and see this successful project as a platform to delivering more environmental improvements as staff are more aware now of the importance both financial and environmental of such schemes.

Photos from this case study can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.

More Information:
Contact The Waste Prevention Team at rwmo@limerickcoco.ie.