You are here

Recycled-content paper purchasing

Posted by Sarthak Prasad on September 27, 2017

Hi SWATeam,

I’m working with two interns, Kate Gardiner and Hursh Hazari, to address the recycled content paper habits on campus.  Hursh did an analysis of the paper purchases by college from FY15, and we are seeking updated data from OBFS.  That is attached in excel here.

Kate is working on putting the policy in the CAM format, and the first stab of that is attached here.

We just got off the phone with one of the F&S folks who orders paper, and she always orders from Office Max in iBuy.  She showed us (shared her screen) how she places the order in office max and got the current pricing for us.  Then she went into iStores from F&s and got the price for 30% recycled content paper.  She said she doesn’t usually go into F&S stores (“iStores”), and it isn’t a punchout in iBuy.  I had thought it was, but we couldn’t find it on the screen (see attached photo).  She couldn’t find the virgin paper pricing in F&S Stores, so we got off the phone and I logged into iStores to get that price. Here are the prices per ream:

 

Office Max – virgin paper $3.10

Office Max – 30% rec. content $3.55, which is 15% higher

 

iStores – virgin paper $2.97

iStores – 30% recycled content $3.03, which is 2% higher

 

Comparing Office Max virgin paper to iStores 30%recycled content paper, users could save 7 cents per ream by switching.  Also, Office Max pricing is based on buying at least 10 reams (or one case), and iStores has that pricing for any quantity, even just one ream.

HOWEVER, it is apparently pretty difficult to use iStores.  Can one of the staff or faculty on your team try to login to iStores and see if you need to get special permission to access it?  I already had access, but that could have been from sometime in my past 20 years on campus.  The logon is at https://my.fs.illinois.edu/fsportal/portal/.

Any and all feedback on the other documents is of course welcome.

 

Thanks!

Morgan