Printing at the Computing Labs
The Office of Information Technology has implemented a printing conservation program at the campus computing labs that has been in effect since August 2007. Since our focus is to concentrate on allowing students to continue to satisfy their academic printing needs, the printing limit that has been put into place has been based on the 2007 survey taken by University students.. Our goal is to improve the efficiency of our computer centers by eliminating unnecessary waste without disturbing the needs of the majority of the student and faculty bodies.

Printing Conservation Progress
Thanks to the Print Conservation program, as well as the concerted efforts of our patrons to conserve paper, we are making great strides to help Rutgers cut down on the waste generated by unnecessary printing.

The following chart shows how much the PrintGreen program saved on New Brunswick campus during its first four years (Fiscal Year 2008 to FY2011: July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2011).

The Computer Labs in New Brunswick have saved over 55,300,000 sheets of paper during the first four years of the PrintGreen Conservation program (starting in the summer of 2007).

Before:
July 1, 2006 - June 30, 2007 : 31,255,000 sheets printed

After:
July 1, 2007 - June 30, 2008 : 21,983,132 sheets printed
July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2009 : 15,078,701 sheets printed
July 1, 2009 - June 30, 2010 : 15,950,562 sheets printed
July 1, 2010 - June 30, 2011 : 16,694,257 sheets printed

This savings is equivalent to about:

• 44% less paper, or
• 11,000 boxes of paper, or
• 4650 trees

Click here for more tips on how to conserve paper at the labs.

Duplex Printing Statistics
For the period September 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007, 17,853,474 pages were printed on 10,462,409 sheets of paper for all computer lab printers. That results in 7,391,065 sheets being saved due to duplex printing.

Based on the following website:

http://www.conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml

...If we go on their estimates, a pallett (200,000 sheets) of virgin paper uses 24 trees (40 feet tall, 6-8 inches in diameter). Since we use 30% recycled content paper that comes out to 16.8 trees per pallett. 7,391,065 sheets comes out to 36.96 pallets or 620 trees saved during the Fall 07 semester (when compared to printing without ANY double-sided printing in our labs).

For the 2008 fiscal year (7/1/07 - 6/30/08), there was a savings of 15,236,469 sheets. With the above calculations this works out to be 76.2 palletts of paper saved, which is over 1,280 trees saved (when compared to NO double-sided printing).

Printing Trends
We have included some information to illustrate how printing usage has changed in recent years. There has been a 150% increase in printing over the last 7 years. Last year alone, over 40 million pages were printed at the computing labs. The increase in printing can be traced to a number of different sources including greater academic reliance on web based systems and online document distribution, the greater acceptance of internet usage and the waste byproducts of lost printouts and unintentional printing.