Social network for photocopying saves money and trees

As advanced as Israel is, not all of the world’s tech innovations have filtered down to the “common man” — or in this case, the average student at Israeli universities. In this age of netbooks and iPads, it would make sense for students to be able to use electronic means to submit papers and reports and to receive documents, study aids, and notes from their professors. While some high schools have gotten with the electronic data program and have distributed notebooks or tablets to students in lieu of textbooks, colleges and universities in Israel are not quite there yet.

While most students in higher education institutions do their work on computers, they need to print out their term papers and reports. Universities offer services that will photocopy or print and even bind reports for students, but the schools charge as much as 20 agorot a page – meaning that students, who on average print out 694 pages per semester (according to alternative printing company Otakim), are paying NIS 138 (about $37) on printing expenses each term.

It’s not a princely sum, by any means, but perhaps even more of an issue for many students is the waste. The cost of a printout isn’t just what comes out of the student’s pocket, but also what comes out of the school’s — and society’s – pockets, with the attendant disposal costs for the paper and ink cartridges, as well as the impact on the world’s forests.

In order to save paper, Otakim, an Israeli website and printing company that provides photocopy services to several Israeli universities, uses social networking to drive down the price of printing, enabling students to share documents used in classes, projects, etc. Otakim is the official printing service of the Israel Students’ Union, and its chief claim to fame is the significantly lower prices it chargers per page for students — 7.77 agorot instead of the 17-20 agorot charged by official school printing services.

But Otakim is also committed to helping reduce the “printing footprint” of the average student, producing double-sided documents (unlike the school services) and multiple pages on the same sheet (i.e., Page 1 and 2 reduced in size on one sheet, instead of full-size on two sheets). Students can share their documents online with others, and “earn” a shekel each time another student uses one of their documents. And, in a nod to Earth Day (on April 22), Otakim will give students the option of using recycled paper for their printouts, and will commit to planting trees to replace those lost to paper production. Currently, Otakim’s services are offered at Hebrew University, Haifa University, and Ariel University, and the company expects to expand services to other schools in the near future.