How QR Codes are Tackling the Paper Waste Crisis Head-On

10,000 sheets of paper. The equivalent of four and a half trees. That’s what the average person in the UK consumes every year. And the scary thing is that two thirds of it is wasted.

It’s a puzzler really, seeing as we’re supposed to be a nation that’s going green and doing what we can to reduce our carbon footprint.

But then when you think about it, there’s so much stuff that we are, as a nation, obligated by law to deliver documentation wise. Landlords must provide a Tenant Pack. Construction companies are required to present a whole host of health and safety paperwork onsite. Then there are specification sheets. Safety certificates. Risk assessments. The list is endless.

These documents can run to literally hundreds of pages. And often they’re printed in colour, and bound. Fuel miles are consumed delivering them to site. And then they change. So the whole thing has to be reprinted, rebound and redelivered.

It takes FIVE LITRES of water to print a single sheet of paper

The process of printing doesn’t just guzzle energy and water (five litres of water per sheet of paper, to be precise), it also depletes natural resources. In fact, half of all waste stems from paper usage.

The thing is, it’s all unnecessary. Legally required documentation need not be printed. When you convert paper documents to electronic files, a digital copy can be posted to the cloud, protected where necessary to make it secure, and then made available through the scan of a simple QR code placed at the location it’s needed.

QR codes - the benefits of digital documentation

Document digitisation via scannable QR codes is the ultimate sustainable solution. And it’s a solution that offers multiple benefits.

Saves trees

Firstly, fewer trees end up in the mills. Forests act as a natural carbon sink, and it’s recently been discovered that trees can store almost double the amount of carbon than previous calculations suggested. This means that for every hectare of woodland lost, we’re potentially losing almost twice the carbon sink capacity than originally thought.

Boosts efficiency

And then there’s the efficiency factor. An environment which consumes minimal paper in favour of paperless documentation doesn’t just reduce our carbon footprint; it also streamlines operations and drives down costs.

Faster and more secure

It’s so much easier to browse digital documentation. Faster to find the key points you need. And they’re more secure like this too, with forgeries, loss or unauthorised access associated with paper copies all taken out of the equation.

Another benefit is that every time documentation needs to be updated, the new version simple overrides the existing digital copy. In other words, no need to reprint and redeliver, and no previous versions hanging around that could be mixed up with current ones.

Trackable

And there are even more advantages. Every time someone scans a QR code, a record is created. So you get to track who’s read the necessary documentation. Now that’s something you can’t do with a paper version.

Multi-lingual

Finally, QR codes allow people to read documents in their preferred language. So barriers are removed and safety boxes ticked. When you think about how many people don’t have English as their mother tongue, it’s easy to see how beneficial this feature really is.

Official documentation delivered by QR codes is contactless. It’s secure. It’s efficient and it’s a whole lot more environmentally friendly than printing.

Ready to reduce paper waste and deliver official documentation on demand? Your cheap QR code generator awaits.

With Bangl, you get to deliver the documentation you’re bound by law to provide, at a fraction of the cost of printing, saving valuable resources in the process

All Ban.gl QR codes are customisable and offer the benefit of simple, no-nonsense pricing. Bangls for official documentation can be created using up to five different languages on the same code.

Need to know more? Contact us. We’re here to help you do your bit for the planet by reducing paper waste, as well as save money and streamline operations.