Thinking Green

The Face In The Mirror

by Dick Rothschild


What lies behind that innocent face greeting you in the bathroom mirror every morning? A not so innocent human being who is responsible for emitting over a thousand pounds of Carbon Dioxide a year. Multiply that by all the faces gazing in the mirror each morning and you have a staggering statistic – far too large – if we are going to reduce pollution and dependence on foreign oil and mitigate climate change.

Hold on now – I am not about to propose that you turn down your thermostat this winter to the point at which icicles form on your nose or that you purchase an all-electric car which can’t even get you to Provincetown and back on a fully charged battery.

What I have in mind are two painless ways you can cut your CO2 count by as much as 20%.
1. The first is to stop receiving catalogs. Ridding yourself of 10 unwanted catalogs can eliminate 154 pounds of carbon dioxide per year, more than 15% of the 1000 pounds the average person accounts for.
Here’s how. From your browser, go to Catalog Choice, http://www.catalogchoice.org.
This free service enables you to stop receiving those catalogs, phone books, coupons and solicitations you don’t want. On the site you sign up for an account. Then having torn off the backs of the catalogs you no longer want to receive, you type in the mailing information printed on each and Catalog Choice will do the rest. Soon you will start to notice that you are receiving fewer catalogs. While the service is not perfect (because a few companies are slow to respond or ignore opt-out requests) it works surprisingly well. Over 1,200,000 people are already using Catalog Choice which, in turn, is in contact with over 3,000 catalog producing companies.

2. The second idea is to go on a paper diet. Before you make a paper copy of something on your computer, ask yourself, “Do I really need to print this?” You’ll find that in most cases saving it in a file on your computer will suffice. As for those documents of which you really need hard copies, consider printing them on both sides of the paper. That will reduce your copy paper consumption by nearly 50%. Here is how.

Printing Second Page on Back Side of Paper
1. Open a two-page file in Microsoft Word, Excel etc.
2. Click on the Office Button (round symbol in the upper left hand corner of the menu bar).
3. On the screen which appears, click on PRINT.
4. In the print window click on CURRENT PAGE.
5. At the bottom of the screen click on OK.
6. When the first printed page emerges from the printer place it back in the printer with the printed side up and the words facing you.
7. Click on the round symbol in upper left hand corner of menu bar.
8. On the screen which appears, click on PRINT.
9. In the print window click on PAGES and then in the window next to it type the number 2.
10. At the bottom of the screen, click on OK.

Printing Multiple Pages on Both Sides of Paper
1. Open a multiple page file in Microsoft Word, Excel etc.
2. Click on the Office Button in the upper left hand corner of menu bar.
3. On the screen which appears click on PRINT.
4. In the print window click on ALL and below it click on ODD PAGES.
5. At the bottom of the screen, click on OK.
6. When the odd pages emerge from the printer place them back in the printer in 1-3-5 etc. order, printed side up with and the words facing you.
7. Click on the round symbol in upper left hand corner of menu bar.
8. On the screen which appears click on PRINT.
9. In the print window click on ALL and below it on EVEN PAGES.
10. At the bottom of the screen, click on OK.


Now that you have mastered printing on both sides of the paper you can go back to reading your favorite newspaper, The Times, the Globe, the Clipper or the Patriot Ledger – hopefully the paperless online edition.