When you purchase paper, buy recycled. According to Treehugger manufacturing recycled paper requires 60% less energy than virgin paper– each ton purchased saved 4000 kWh of energy. To find out how much energy you are using and can save check out their handy recycled paper calculator. There are a lot of recycled paper products. New Leaf Paper is a company that offers a wide variety of competitively priced recycled paper products. They are committed to offering environmentally responsible and economically sound paper.

Or even better try treeless-paper. These products go a step further in that no trees have been destroyed. Instead innovative resources such as sugar cane, elephant dung and bamboo are used.

And once you’ve used it – recycle it. You can recycle internally by using the back of the page as well as the front and then make sure that paper finds its way to your recycling bin instead of the trash. According to the book Trash to Cash, by Fran Berman, “recycling one ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for six months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space and 60 pounds of air pollution.”

We’d love to hear about your paper-saving tips. Leave a comment or email us (lifework_blog@hermanmiller.com).

Above is Al Gore’s paper-filled office via LifeHacker.