Printing is not meant to be convenient.

That's the impetus behind a School District 43 strategy to reduce paper use in its buildings.

Information services manager Brian Kuhn said the district spends about $2 million per year on paper for its 650 printing devices.

"There's a fair bit of money that we can potentially save . There's a cost of convenience," Kuhn said at Tuesday's school board meeting.

"Convenience costs us money, so by reducing convenience, we can hopefully get back some money as well."

Energy manager Dave Sands agreed.

"Now it's time for a change. Given our focus on our carbon footprint, the amount of money we pay to utilities on a monthly basis and as well the supplies we purchase regularly in terms of paper, it is definitely time for a change," Sands said.

"Printing is not meant to be convenient. We need to change the way we're thinking . It's about changing our culture and our habits."

After issuing a request for proposals, the school district opted to work with the company Ricoh to provide multifunctional printing devices in its buildings. Outdated and unnecessary machines will be removed.

Kuhn said Ricoh will also provide baseline data by mid-February about the current status at each school.

As well, the company will measure how far staff and students need to walk to access machines.

"They're going around every building, every room, every nook and corner in every building looking for printers, scanners, fax machines - whether we own them or someone else owns them," Kuhn said.

"They're collecting data from them as best as they can so we . can measure where we're at today with what we have today."

Some schools are already doing well, according to quarterly data on the average number of photocopies per student.

R.C. MacDonald Elementary, Montgomery Middle and Terry Fox Secondary produce the lowest number of copies per student.

Sands said staff development will help facilitate a similar shift across the district.

"It's about reducing, shifting our thought process, our behaviour around printing," Sands said. "We don't need to print everything."

jmcfee@thenownews.com

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