How to reduce paper waste at home and work

Paper is recyclable — but reducing comes first. Recycling still requires energy, water and transport. The goal is to not need the paper in the first place.

Go paperless for bills and admin

The largest avoidable paper stream for most households is correspondence — bank statements, utility bills, council tax notices, insurance documents and similar items that arrive monthly or annually, get glanced at and then pile up or get shredded.

• Switch to e-bills and e-statements. Most banks, utilities and insurers offer paperless billing. Log in to each account and find the "communication preferences" or "paperless" option. It takes a few minutes per account and eliminates ongoing paper permanently. Many providers offer a small discount for paperless billing.
• Digital notes instead of paper ones. If you reach for a notepad habitually, try a notes app on your phone or computer instead. For those who find physical writing essential, a reusable notebook with erasable pages is a lasting investment.
• Digital tickets and boarding passes. Wherever you have the option, use your phone rather than printing. Airlines, rail operators, cinemas and event venues all support this — and a phone is harder to lose than a folded printout.
• Scan and discard. For documents you need to keep but don't need in physical form, a simple scanning app on your phone converts them to a searchable PDF. A document folder in cloud storage is easier to search than a filing cabinet.
• E-signatures. Most modern document platforms (DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and equivalents built into many services) accept legally valid electronic signatures. If you are still printing documents just to sign and scan them, an e-signature saves the whole round trip.

Stop junk mail

Unsolicited post — catalogues, leaflets, promotional mail and pizza menus — is delivered without your consent and goes straight into the recycling for most people. Stopping it at source is far better than recycling it.

• Register with opt-out services. In the UK, the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) lets you opt out of addressed marketing mail from companies registered with it. In the US, DMAchoice.org handles marketing post and OptOutPrescreen.com stops pre-approved credit and insurance offers. Other countries have equivalent services — search for "[your country] mailing preference" to find them.
• "No junk mail" sign. A clearly visible "no unaddressed mail" or "no junk mail" sign on your letterbox stops most leaflet and catalogue deliveries. It won't stop addressed promotional mail, but it handles the bulk of door-drop leaflets.
• Contact companies directly. If you receive a catalogue or promotional mailing you didn't ask for, contact the company to remove your name and address. This takes a couple of minutes and stops future mailings from that sender.
• Unsubscribe from email. Email marketing and postal marketing are often linked in the same database. Unsubscribing from email lists can also reduce related postal mailings over time.

Smarter printing habits

The goal at work and at home is the same: only print what you genuinely need in physical form, and do it as efficiently as possible when you do.

• Ask: do I actually need to print this? Most documents — reference materials, drafts, reports you'll read once — are easier to search, share and annotate on screen than on paper.
• Print double-sided. Most printers support duplex printing. Set it as the default in your printer settings. You'll use half the paper immediately.
• Use draft mode. For internal documents and anything you're printing just for reference, draft mode uses significantly less ink. The text is still legible.
• Print multiple pages per sheet. For reference documents — recipes, notes, instructions — printing two or four pages per sheet is readable and uses far less paper.
• Reuse one-sided printed paper. Paper printed on one side is perfect for notes, shopping lists and scrap paper. Keep a stack near the printer or desk.

Kitchen and bathroom paper

Paper towels and kitchen roll are a significant ongoing purchase — and one of the easiest to eliminate entirely.

• Switch to cloth. Cut-up old cotton T-shirts or dedicated cloth squares do the same job as paper towels, wash easily and last for years. Keep a stack in the same spot your paper towels were. For a purpose-made option, waffle-weave cotton cloths absorb very well. See our reusable swaps guide for more cloth alternatives.
• Cloth napkins. A set of cloth napkins — even cheap cotton ones — replaces paper napkins at meals. They look better and need washing no more often than once or twice a week for a household.
• Recycled-content kitchen roll and toilet paper. When you do buy paper products, choosing brands made from 100% recycled paper or certified sustainably sourced fibre has a meaningfully lower environmental impact than virgin-fibre alternatives.

Receipts

Receipts are a surprisingly awkward paper problem. They're short-lived, frequently unnecessary, and often not recyclable.

• Choose digital receipts. Many retailers now offer email or app receipts instead of paper. Opt for these wherever you can — they're also easier to retrieve for returns or expenses.
• Thermal paper receipts cannot usually be recycled. The slippery, smooth paper used for till receipts (and some tickets and ATM slips) is thermal paper coated with chemicals (including BPA or BPS in some cases) that contaminate the pulp during recycling. This is not obvious from looking at them — if in doubt, put them in general waste rather than the paper recycling. Check with your local recycling service if uncertain.
• For expenses and records: photograph the receipt immediately with your phone rather than keeping the paper. Several free apps are designed for this and can export to a spreadsheet.

Recycle the rest correctly

Once you've reduced what you use, recycling the remainder correctly matters — contaminated paper batches can make a whole collection unrecyclable.

• What can be recycled: newspaper, plain office paper, envelopes (including windowed ones in most modern facilities), cardboard and card packaging, magazines and catalogues, paperback books, paper bags.
• What cannot: greasy or food-contaminated paper (used paper towels, pizza boxes with significant grease), thermal receipts, laminated or glossy-laminated paper (some greetings cards, laminated certificates), waxed paper, and tissue/kitchen paper.
• When in doubt, check locally. Recycling rules vary significantly by location. Your local authority or waste service will have a specific list — it takes two minutes to look up and prevents contaminating batches.

For more on getting recycling right, see our recycling guide.

Choose recycled-content paper

For paper you do buy — printer paper, notebooks, toilet paper, kitchen roll — the material matters.

• Look for 100% recycled content, or paper certified by FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or similar schemes, which ensure sustainably managed forests.
• Recycled printer paper is available from most office supply retailers and performs identically to virgin-fibre paper in standard printers.
• Recycled toilet and kitchen roll brands are widely available; some are now cost-competitive with mainstream brands, especially in bulk.

Your reduce-paper checklist

• Switch to paperless billing for every account that offers it.
• Register with your country's mailing preference opt-out service.
• Put a "no junk mail" sign on your letterbox.
• Set double-sided printing as the default on your printer.
• Keep a stack of one-sided printed paper for notes and scrap.
• Replace paper towels with a stack of cloth squares or old T-shirt cloths.
• Switch to cloth napkins for everyday meals.
• Choose digital receipts wherever offered; photograph the rest immediately.
• Put thermal till receipts in general waste, not paper recycling.
• Switch to recycled-content printer paper and tissue products.