Working in a newspaper office, there is, inevitably, a fair amount of paper around, most of which lies idle on my desk in what I claim to be a filing system.

But when opening the post the other day, I noticed the speed at which I was accumulating excess paper and used envelopes.

And as I sat, staring at this pile of rubbish, (which bears no relation to my articles or blogs before anyone jokes) it became apparent to me that it could be too easy to flout the recycling responsibilities.

Ironically, amongst the unwanted mail, was a catalogue offering an extensive, believe it or not, range of packaging options, including such luxuries as double wall cartons, corrugated paper and office storage bins.

And although many of the items were 100 per cent recyclable, it’s questionable how much of it people bother to not simply bin.

One measurement from Waste Online, stated that UK households produced the equivalent weight of almost 250 jumbo jets per week in packaging waste, and I imagine businesses are equally as culpable.

In Barnet, over 11 thousand tons of paper is collected for recycling each year, which saves on thousands of kilowatts of electricity and huge amounts of land fill.

In fact, for every ton of paper used for recycling, enough electricity is saved to power a three bedroom house for a year.

So with a constant steam of paper rolling into the office, I am going to make efforts to reduce the wasted white stuff.

One suggestion I have been given is to “think before I print”, ie, read more stuff off the computer screen and don’t just print of material what will be dumped when read.

There is also an aim to print on both sides of the paper, and write on both sides of a note pad so as to double the amount of time I can use it for.

I have also decided to take the heaps of paper home and add them to my domestic black box, to avoid it getting caught up in the office refuge, a burden I will bear for my green routine.

Other ideas to cut the paper weight, include reusing old envelopes by sticking labels over the previous address, and putting up a note asking for no junk mail through the letter box.

All simple measures that can help reduce the paper mountains and green up the office environment.