Paper is the largest single category of municipal solid waste in the United States, accounting for 23% of all waste generated according to EPA data. In the UK, commercial and industrial paper and cardboard waste runs to approximately 4.8 million tonnes annually, per DEFRA. Across both markets, the same pattern holds: enormous volumes of printed business materials are produced at low cost, used briefly, and discarded the same day they are handed out.

SeedPrint, an online printer that makes plantable paper products for businesses and consumers, compiled an analysis of publicly available data to put sharper figures on what companies are actually discarding.

Office waste starts at the desk

Each office worker uses an estimated 10,000 sheets of copy paper per year. In the US, EPA-derived research estimates around 8,000 of those sheets per employee are either discarded on the day of printing or never used for their original purpose. In the UK, the figure sits at approximately 6,800 wasted sheets per worker. Paper accounts for around 70% of total office waste in both markets.

That figure precedes any events, any client-facing printing, and any stationery issued to staff.

Business cards: 88% gone within a week

An estimated 27 million business cards are printed globally every day. Research consistently finds 88% are discarded within a week of receipt, producing around 12,000 tonnes of business card waste annually worldwide.

Digital networking has reduced card exchange in many industries, yet printing volumes remain high in professional services, finance, and corporate events, where physical cards continue to be ordered by default rather than by any considered procurement decision.

Tom Willday, founder of SeedPrint, says the issue rarely appears in corporate sustainability strategies on either side of the Atlantic.

"Businesses are increasingly focused on Scope 3 emissions and supply chain sustainability, but printed stationery rarely appears on anyone's radar," says Willday. "A typical corporate event produces thousands of printed items, and almost none of it survives the day. That is a measurable waste stream and a reputational risk for companies with published ESG commitments."

SeedPrint's analysis calculates that a mid-sized business attending twelve events per year and distributing 500 business cards at each produces over 5,000 discarded cards from that activity alone, before accounting for internal card use or other printed event materials.

The regulatory pressure

In the UK, DEFRA's Simpler Recycling reform, which came into force on 31 March 2025, requires all businesses with ten or more employees to separately collect paper and cardboard. A Censuswide survey from July 2024 found 50% of UK business owners were unaware of the reform and only 6% had prepared.

The US is moving in a similar direction through voluntary frameworks and investor pressure. ESG reporting has gone mainstream, with the majority of large-cap US companies now publishing annual sustainability reports. Scope 3 emissions disclosures are increasingly expected as standard, and printed stationery volumes represent a data gap that sustainability teams can close without major operational change.

Corporate events as a material issue

The UK corporate events sector generates £33.6 billion annually. In the US, events industry revenue runs to hundreds of billions annually, with sustainability increasingly cited as a procurement requirement at board level.

UFI's Global Exhibition Barometer from January 2024 found that sustainability had grown from 4% to 13% as a top business issue between 2016 and 2024. For procurement teams looking to reduce printed material waste without cutting output, seed paper is a direct substitution. Business cards, event programmes, and name badges in seed paper function identically to conventional materials and eliminate the disposal problem at source.

Where to start

Auditing printed stationery volumes as part of Scope 3 reporting is the natural starting point. Switching business cards to seed paper is low cost and low friction. Replacing printed event programmes and place cards with plantable alternatives gives attendees something to take home. Including stationery suppliers in supply chain ESG assessments addresses the upstream problem.

For organisations already publishing sustainability reports, this is one of the few areas where the action and the evidence are both easy to produce.