Office Workers Waste 6,800 Sheets of Paper Each Year, Here’s How to Reduce it

Office workers in the UK use 10,000 sheets of copy paper annually, with 68% classified as wasted through unnecessary printing, forgotten documents, and inefficient practices, according to research commissioned by sustainable stationery manufacturer SeedPrint.

The data reveals that paper products constitute 70% of total office waste and 50% of overall business waste. Each office worker generates approximately 500kg of paper waste yearly.

England’s commercial and industrial sector produced 32.6 million tonnes of total waste in 2023, with paper and cardboard comprising 14.8% of this stream, approximately 4.8 million tonnes annually, according to DEFRA’s July 2025 statistics. An estimated 5 million tonnes of paper still reaches UK landfills annually despite recycling infrastructure.

Tom Willday, Founder of SeedPrint, says that the volume of wasted printing shows that most office paper use is habit rather than necessity. “Businesses face both the environmental cost and the financial burden of waste that could be avoided.”

The Simpler Recycling reform, announced by DEFRA in November 2024, mandates that all UK businesses with ten or more employees must separately collect paper and cardboard from 31 March 2025. Micro-firms with under ten employees must comply by 31 March 2027.

A July 2024 Censuswide survey conducted by First Mile found that 50% of UK business owners were unaware of the Simpler Recycling Reform, 64% of businesses were not prepared, and only 6% of UK companies had made changes in preparation.

Current landfill tax stands at £103.70 per tonne, with the Office for Budget Responsibility projecting increases of £0.6 billion by 2025, creating financial incentives for waste reduction.

The shift to digital has reduced some paper use. Traditional business card printing dropped 70% post-COVID as digital networking accelerated. Globally, 27 million business cards are printed daily, with 88% discarded within a week, resulting in 12,000 tonnes of business card waste annually worldwide.

Willday has some practical advice for businesses looking to reduce paper waste:

• Audit before you act. “Track your paper use for one month. Most businesses are surprised to find that meeting handouts, forgotten print jobs, and single-sided printing account for the majority of waste. You can’t reduce what you don’t measure.”
• Make double-sided printing the default. “Change your printer settings so double-sided is automatic rather than optional. This single change can halve your paper consumption overnight.”
• Choose quality over quantity. “When you do need to print something like a business card or sign, use a higher quality material that is more likely to be kept rather than a flimsy one that goes straight in the bin.”
• Switch to reusable alternatives. “Whiteboards for meeting notes, digital signature software for contracts, and shared documents for collaboration eliminate thousands of sheets per year.”
• Procure with purpose. “When you do buy paper products, specify recycled content, FSC certification, or innovative alternatives.”

And for householders, check out our ideas for reducing your paper footprint.