The term "paperless office" snuck into the vernacular in the late 1990s, and I haven't seen a single sheet of paper since!

Okay, that's far from the truth. Paper is still all over. Between our mailboxes, school correspondences and product packaging, it infiltrates our life with stealth, until it bulges into haphazard piles, extending from two dimensions to three.

But in addition to being passive bystanders, we're active players too—or more specifically, printers.

Printing, printers, ink and paper are collectively a pretty nasty process as it concerns the environment. Profligate use of paper contributes to deforestation. Printers are produced so cheaply to have reached throwaway status, infesting landfills with hazardous materials. Ink and toner are both caustic substances, and the heavy-plastic containers they come in are short-lived, creating an endless flow of cartridges that take almost a thousand years to biodegrade.

That last issue is a serious one, not just from an ecological standpoint, but from a financial one as well. By now, most of us realize why the manufacturers sell us such a sophisticated piece of machinery as a home printer for the preposterously low price of $79. It's because a full set of cartridges cost the same—and that's a full set you'll be buying on a never-ending loop.

In this case, for Dell, HP, IBM, Epson and so many others, the profit motive has trumped social responsibility.

To that end, services have stepped in that do good in numerous ways. Jody Campbell runs the Marlton-based franchise Rapid Refill, a home and business delivery service. He supplies remanufactured cartridges, both ink and toner, for all major printer makes and models, while also collecting the used ones. Campbell's business helps buffer against the waves of cartridges that are thrown away once their supply is depleted.

"It takes nearly a gallon of oil to make one toner cartridge," Campbell says, and a quart for the smaller inkjet cartridge. For a country in critical need of weening off petroleum, here's yet another solution.

Campbell's real selling point though, is the financial savings. His products—equal in page yield and quality to the original manufacturer's—save businesses 20 to 30 percent on their in-office printing expenses.

As a home worker or in your cubicle, further save money and energy by printing on both sides of the paper, and make sure the paper is made from 100 percent post-consumer waste. This is available at most major retailers—a ream costs $12, compared to non- or low-recycled content at $9. Why pay more? For one thing, to support and bolster the strength of recycled materials markets.

Remember, our curbside recycling services is only a viable business because there are buyers willing to purchase our collected waste and remanufacture it into new products. When you buy new products made from old ones (that recycled ream of paper, for instance), you're breathing life into that circle of responsible waste management.

Burlington County's District Recycling Coordinator Ann Moore knows the importance of practicing what you preach when it comes to using recycled goods.

"The county has used recycled copy paper for over a decade with no problem. We need to find a home for our recycled materials in this country, rather than ship everything overseas," says Moore.

She's also teamed with Laser Save of Freehold for their toner cartridge needs, and the savings have materialized. The company claims that their remanufactured cartridges save 40 percent off a user's carbon footprint.

The very best method of printing? Not to print at all. I've grown accustomed to snapping a picture with my phone's camera of my computer screen if I think I might need the info at a later time. This is even better than paper—it becomes that much more portable and retrievable at any instant.

Paperless hasn't yet arrived, but in the meantime, apply these best practices both at home and work. And if you're a business owner and haven't yet unearthed some of these cost-saving ideas, you ought to cash in. Isn't that the greenest paper of all?