All signs seem to indicate that the printing restrictions on campus are a resounding success. Student printing has been reduced by 40 percent in just the first month of the plan, and as a result, students are wasting less paper. The first part of that sentence is true; the latter is a leap of logic.

When I went to pick up my printing in the Dauten lab, there was a sign on the printer telling me that by printing 22,000 sheets, we had emitted more than 400 pounds of carbon, used up almost a third of a tree and used enough energy to power a 100-watt light bulb for 6,500 hours. “Think before you print,” the sign exhorted. So, I am thinking, and here are my thoughts. I don’t like having to pay for printing.

Students on the South 40 need to continue cutting back on paper usage, according to administrators at Student Technology Services (STS). Although PaperCut software is being used in these residential areas, there has actually been a substantial increase in the amount of printing done in residential computer labs this year. The PaperCut monitoring software is used on main campus and in the residential areas.

Earlier this month, Student Technology Services revealed that there are some students who are outrageously abusing the free printing services it offers in Residential Life dorms. The e-mail more specifically indicated that the printing services are being exploited by a mysterious demographic: The top-10 largest printers at Washington University.

Students living in residential areas are all too familiar with the printing ritual on campus: Print, sort through discarded sheets of assorted chemistry slides and short stories, pick up printed paper.

According to an e-mail circulated on April 28, 2009, by Marcia Mannen, associate director of client support of Arts & Sciences Computing, with this semester comes not only the South 40 House and the Class of 2013, but also a new printing policy. The new policy can potentially make the campus a bit greener and [...]

Even in the short time that I have been at Wash. U., I can barely count the times that I have been late to a class because I have been unable to print something important.