Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz and members of Erie County’s “Green Team” today announced the winner of the county’s internal operations Paper Reduction Contest in conjunction with the nationwide celebration of America Recycles Day.

Receiving the “Golden Printer” recognition award for having the highest overall percentage reduction in paper usage was the Erie County Department of Budget and Management, which reduced the total number of pieces of paper used to print documents from 2016 to 2017 by 37.2 percent. Finishing in second place with a 31.3 percent reduction in paper usage was the Erie County Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry, while the Erie County Division of Information and Support Services finished in third place with a 26.5 percent reduction in paper usage.

“This friendly competition amongst county departments helped bring awareness amongst all county employees about the importance of reducing waste and implementing new strategies that help evaluate daily printing habits,” said Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz. “From double-sided printing to widening margins on documents to taking just a few moments to ask yourself if you really need to print a particular e-mail or memo, this contest introduced opportunities for paper reduction. I applaud the three departments who were recognized today and encourage other municipalities to consider holding similar contests in the future. Making this announcement on America Recycles Day is also a reminder for all Erie County residents to do your own evaluation at work and at home of your daily printing habits and what you can do to decrease your own personal paper usage.”

The contest, which was coordinated by members of Erie County’s “Green Team” and employees from the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning, included monthly tracking of all prints and copies, with those statistics then compared to the percent reduction from the same month of the previous year based on that departments own usage. Teams for the contest were defined based on approximately 75 Xerox office copy machines located throughout Erie County offices.

For more information:

On the Erie County Department of Environment and Planning, visit http://www2.erie.gov/environment/