SmallBizResource Blog -- Hardware

A Greener Shade of Fax

Posted by Cora Nucci Thursday, Aug 30, 2007, 09:58 AM ET

A former colleague is transitioning from full-time corporate employment to life as a freelance journalist. The ancient fax machine in her home office was out of thermal paper, and her new printer/scanner wasn't hooked up yet. So she drove 14 miles to another friend's office, just to fax some signed documents to a new client.

Shouldn't we all be doing something to curb our consumption? The reasons are simple. Fax machines are big, ugly, and outmoded. According to Energy Star, a joint program of the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, one of the most energy-intensive pieces of business equipment is the paper-intensive fax machine, because it is often left on around the clock. A single fax machine consumes between 30 and 350 watts per hour. Compare that to other appliances.

There's a better way to fax – and that's electronically, through your PC.

Electronic faxes don't use any more energy than you're already using by having your computer on. Your computer doesn't even have to be on for a document to be received. And you don't have to print documents unless you want to. This, according to research from myFax, saves trees and power consumption at paper mills.

Unplugging the beast isn't enough. Make sure it's properly recycled and not sent to a landfill.

See also: Send Documents as PDFs Rather Than Fax.

Green | Hardware | Networking & Communications