New Student Print Management Policy a Success
May 8, 2009 -- Thanks to a new print management policy at Western State College of Colorado, students now think twice before printing. The result: nearly a half ton of paper--or 90,968 sheets--saved in just one semester.
Starting this past spring semester, the college, with approval from the Student Government Association, implemented a printing quota in the computer labs for each student. Students are allotted 600 pages per semester, an amount that was determined by tracking research conducted by the computer services department; 98 percent of the student population prints less than that amount. Students who print over their quota pay a surcharge of 5 cents per page. In the program’s first semester, only 1 percent of the student body went over the quota.
The printing policy is more about making students mindful about what they are printing rather than a cost-cutting measure.
“The purpose of the student print quota is not to save money or stop students from printing, but to raise awareness of unnecessary printing and reduce the amount of paper waste in the computer labs,” explained Kate Osborne, a systems administrator with computer services. “Our students are very eco-minded, however, it’s easy to just hit ‘print’ without realizing if they actually need all those pages.” For example, students may print an entire PDF document, but only need one or two pages from it.
After a student sends a document to the printer, a verification box pops up on the screen to confirm the print job. It also displays the number of pages that will be printed and the amount that remains in the student’s quota. According to Osborne, this feature alone has saved more than 32,000 sheets of paper.
The quota also saves on toner, which supports the college’s mission to become carbon neutral per its signing of the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. Other environmentally friendly elements of the student computer labs are a default setting to print on both sides of a sheet of paper and the use of 100 percent post-consumer, recycled paper.
Due to its success, Western will continue to implement the student print management policy.
“The amount of paper saved in just one semester is beyond what we expected,” Osborne said. “Our goal was just to have less waste in the computer labs, which has been noticeable.”
