Reports Indicate Strange, Contagious Disease Striking School Photocopy Machines, Causing Global Warming
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY 
on 03.13.08
In a report just in from the Robert Moses Middle School in North Babylon NY, students and staff there have become concerned by the fact that the school photocopy machine is exhibiting signs of a strange illness. They're not yet quite certain what it is, but a key symptom they're reporting is a propensity to chew up trees at an amazing rate before spitting them out in shreds with some sort of toxic goo all over them. And all while consuming vast amounts of water, paper, and energy that's leading to global warming through the release of CO2.
Now, they're working feverishly to find a way to keep this disease from spreading, but there's no way to know if it already has… In fact, there are rumors coming out of California that it may have already worked its way into school photocopiers there.
We at TreeHugger are asking people not to panic, but just take a good hard look at the photocopy machine in their school. It may be exhibiting signs of a strange, contagious disease that’s contributing to global warming.
And in the interest of saving the planet they’ve set up a Copy Crisis Team in North Babylon to handle inquires and compare notes with other schools. If you think your school photocopier may be affected please contact them immediately at copycrisisteam (@) gmail (dot) com.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Crisis Confirmed, The Great Copy Machine Epidemic is Under Way!
Via:: Tipster
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they should get recycle bins haha
Recycle bins don't scratch the surface of copier problems. I've worked in several churches and as soon as you get a copier, you get bulletins, handouts, everyone gets a copy of the music you're doing today and suddenly you're awash in paper. Even if you're printing on recycled paper and recycling the paper, that's a lot more usage than the old hymn books were.
I agree with Anne, recycle bins don't scratch the surface. We seem to have forgotten the first step is reduce, then reuse, and then recycle.
I thought all copiers consumed vast amounts of paper and energy. Perhaps this is a hereditary disease.
For reducing the amount of paper, my only suggestion is to use e-mail more and think about when handouts can be shared or reduced in size to fit more than one copy onto a sheet of paper. As for reusing, at the landscape architecture firm where I worked a while ago, we always made an effort to reuse the paper by copying onto the other side, stapling used paper into "notebooks", or using the blank side for drawing paper.
For kids, of course, paper can also be recycled into airplanes.
Solution to the school/Church copier problem: BYOP. Bring your own paper! Or rather don't stock any paper with the copier,and users will be forced to bring their own. Or just rely on Kinkos et al.
I work for one of canons leading retailers and I am proud to inform all of you that both my company and canon are sprinting away from high-mass copy machines towards paper-free documenting. Programs such as canons "scan to e-mail" feature save tons of paper and keep everything electronic. This is only one of many examples of ways in which technology is taking a turn for the green side and I'm proud to be a part of it.
I agree with Sam-Hec, the more the direct costs of paper are shifted over to the consumer in general, the better for the environment
At my college we have free printing in the main classroom/lecture hall buildings and pay-per-print in the library and student union. Both locations' printers can print single sided or double sided.
This is entirely circumstantial and unscientific, but ive never seen someone use the double sided option (cuts paper use in half in theory) on the free printers, and ive never seen the single sided option used in the library where you can cut your cost in half by double side printing
for the record i always print double sided :P
Unfortunately the effort to even "go green" seems to create even more paper. In most local school districts thousand of sheets of one-sided copies are sent home WEEKLY in snail mail or in backpacks. The majority of this could be eliminated. If schools (and parents) were forced to use e-mail more often millions of dollars and trees would be saved annually!
Unfortunately the effort to even "go green" seems to create even more paper. In most local school districts thousand of sheets of one-sided copies are sent home WEEKLY in snail mail or in backpacks. The majority of this could be eliminated. If schools (and parents) were forced to use e-mail more often millions of dollars and trees would be saved annually!
Parliament Place Elementary in North Babylon has joined Mr. Lunas' cause and will shut down our copy machine on April 17th as our school "GOES GREEN"!
The kids are right. Copiers are wasteful, as are printers in general. There's software available called GreenPrint that wants to remedy this problem just like the students in NY. It allows a user to eliminate unwanted pages prior to printing, letting them decide what they want to print. It also lets you cut out those annoying leftover orphan pages like the ones when you try to print out a web page. Best of all the "World" version is free. I might be biased (I'm originally from an area very close to Babylon) but I say check it out: www.printgreener.com
I like this idea!
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