Greener Now tips on fax machines
Business fax traffic has been reduced dramatically with the widespread use of email which is the cheapest, most convenient and environmentally sound option available.
Nonetheless, you may still have a fax machine so before faxing something, think about whether you can communicate using email instead. If you can't, here are some energy and paper saving tips:
- Fax machines are mostly inactive so it is important to choose one with a low standby energy rating.
- If you have many fax machines, divert calls to a few units after hours and turn the rest off
- Set sleep mode default times to the lowest available setting
- Fill the paper bin/cartridge with paper that is already printed on one side
- Adjust your margins and type size to fit more on the page
- Use ink and toner saving settings
- Recycle and refill toner and ink cartridges.
Over the past few years, fax and printing technologies have moved much closer together to the point where there are now many combined fax/printers on the market. Most fax machines send and receive faxes for only a small proportion of their operating time, you may be able to find a fax/printer with lower energy consumption than two separate machines.
Most people still leave their fax machines on all the time. However, if you rarely receive faxes outside working hours, consider switching them off after hours to save energy.
In the case of larger offices with many fax machines, energy can be saved by turning off some machines after hours and diverting calls to one or a few machines.
Thermal paper can cost about two and a half times as much as plain paper, and plain paper already printed on one side is often reused in fax machines. For laser and LED machines, you will need to check that reusing paper is covered by the manufacturer's warranty.
In many offices, faxes are transmitted with a separate cover sheet and individual transmission or status reports are printed. This increases the amount of paper used by one-third.
You can avoid the problem by using stick-on labels or rubber stamps for the front pages of faxes and writing in the name of the recipient, the date and the number of pages being sent.
