Matt Mitgang | First Year Center

Last November, Student Technology Services implemented a program called PaperCut aimed to reduce printing waste by requiring students to release documents from a separate computer terminal, instead of printing directly from their own computers.

PaperCut requires students to release documents from a separate computer terminal, instead of printing directly from their own computers. At the dedicated document-release terminal, students can cancel print orders, print documents individually or print all the documents in their queue. Student Technology Services (STS) saves all print orders on a network for several hours, and users can release documents from any STS-managed computer lab on the South 40 or North Campus or in the University-owned apartments.

The program does not charge students for printing in these computer labs, but it does monitor their use.

According to Barbara Braun, director of STS, it’s too early to tell if PaperCut has had any effect on students’ printing habits. Because a full year has not yet passed since the program’s initiation last November, making comparisons at this point cannot account for the variation in printer use over the course of the year.

PaperCut will be used for the rest of the academic year; STS will not implement a quota and will continue to provide free printing in dorms.

Many students have positive opinions regarding PaperCut. The extra step in releasing documents to the printer encourages students to think before printing and prevents unnecessary print orders.

“It’s more inconvenient to go to the printer. I think it definitely does reduce printing because sometimes people print stuff and forget about it or decide they don’t want it anymore,” sophomore Simon Hsu said.

Freshman Jordan Peters added that students may be more inclined to look at handouts directly on their computers to avoid printing at the terminal.

While this extra step may reduce waste, some have pointed out that it also noticeably reduces printing efficiency. For students in a time crunch, PaperCut can be a hassle.

“It definitely slows down the process. If the computer lab is extremely crowded, it makes it that much more difficult to expedite the process,” sophomore Justin Nicks said.

Some students remain unconvinced that PaperCut actually reduces unnecessary printing.

“It makes it easier for people to print 100 pages,” sophomore Liz Fang said. “I’ve had to wait five minutes for people to print out a book.”

Whether students love or hate PaperCut, STS will continue to monitor printing in all STS computer labs.

Braun plans to gather a full year’s worth of data and then create a student group in January or February to crunch the data, with the goal of producing a recommendation by March or April.

Meanwhile, the Student Technology Advisory Committee collects printing data on a weekly basis. Braun sends e-mails to the users who print the most to inform these students of their environmental impact. One student printed 1,439 pages last week.

“All 4,000 residential students have to share this resource, and we have ten out of 4,000 eating up 25 percent of this resource. It’s not fair for all the other students. Generally, you don’t see them on [the list of top ten printers] a second time,” Braun said.

Braun uses software to convert the energy, paper, and toner use associated with printing to more tangible data such as the percentage of a tree consumed, the amount of CO2 produced and the equivalent time a light bulb could be left on.

Although STS does not currently service printing on main campus, Braun says that other University entities are working toward a campus-wide printing program.

But this tradition will soon be changing. The Student Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) and Student Technology Services (STS) have teamed up to reduce printing waste in residential halls.

Their solution is a system that enables students to print to a virtual universal printer from anywhere in Residential Life housing. They can then go to a printer anywhere on the residential campus and release their print job from that printer. But they must actually be in the computer lab to print the job.

Members of STAC and STS hope this system will cut down on the number of pages students print and never pick up.

The new system is managed by PaperCut. PaperCut gives Washington University technology services the power to implement many different sanctions, including paper quotas, fees per sheet of paper and the new release system.

Members of STS have high hopes for the new system.

“We hope that by having to physically be at a printer, that will cut back on the amount of waste,” said Barbara Braun, director of STS.

Although STS has not kept count of exactly how much waste there has been in the past, employees say they often observe a large number of packets that just sit in the computer labs until someone recycles them.

Students have also noticed this wastefulness.

“There’s this big tray full of paper that nobody ever uses,” sophomore William Swanson said.

Few students have reported problems with the new system.

“I think that so far students’ reaction to it in res-halls has been really positive,” said John Bailey, manager of STS. “I think the students like that you can print to the system anywhere and release it to any printer in the system…which I think is a nice thing they didn’t have before.”

Students also seem to understand the need for the new system.

“In terms of wastefulness, yes, it’s a good idea. In terms of convenience it might not be, but when it comes to environmental issues in general, oftentimes convenience has to be sacrificed, because in the long run what’s most important is that our environment is in a stable condition,” freshman Justin Blau said.

“I think it makes sense because if someone goes there and prints and doesn’t pick their things up, it saves paper,” sophomore Bridgette Zou said.

STS will be tracking the results of the new program over the next few semesters.

“We’re going to be monitoring this fall and this spring, working with STAC to see how printing totals compare and watching recycle bins to see waste anyway,” Braun said. “We’re taking it out for a test drive, and we’ll see what happens.”