ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997 TAG: 9704140125
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: paper chase
SOURCE: JOHN LEVIN
Curb your appetite for paper - Congress has said so.
More precisely, the House Small Business Committee last month passed an act that would require federal agencies to allow us to comply with federal paperwork requirements by using computers and phones instead. Businesses, especially, currently must consume and maintain small mountains of paper to supply all the information that governments require.
For individuals, there's probably no better example than the Internal Revenue Service, whose 1040EZ tax form asks for just two pages of data but comes with 31 pages of instructions.
"Small firms all over America are conducting their business more efficiently by using computers. Why should the federal government be any different?" asked Jim Talent, the Missouri Republican who introduced the bill as the committee's chairman.
It's been tried before|
This same bill has been around once before. The House of Representatives adopted it in the 104th session of Congress, which ended earlier this year, but it never reached the Senate.
Even if this bill becomes law, don't expect any quick change.
Roanoke area companies selling paper, filing cabinets to store it and shredders to get rid of it agree that business is brisk with little sign of waning.
"I guess I'm not concerned," said Danielle Yarber, vice president and general manager of Dillard Paper Co.'s Roanoke branch. "It seems like I've been hearing it as long as I've been in the business, but when they say they're going to cut down on paperwork I think about how computers have generated more paper," she said.
Any successful drive to reduce use of paper "will be driven not by government but by the public, as a desire to conserve resources."
Why Yarber isn't worried about losing the 40 percent of her revenues that come from sales of printing papers is that many people do not yet feel comfortable without having hard copies of what they generate in computers.
Business is booming|
Paper for computer laser printers has become a major category for Greensboro, N.C.-based Dillard, along with recycled paper.
Replacing paperwork with its electronic equivalent is like "when they introduced computers and said nobody would again buy a typewriter," said Kent Wright, president of Wright Business Machines Inc. of Roanoke. "Now, I'm selling more that ever," he said of typewriters, which - for the generation that might have missed them - are word processors without the little screens.
Paper shredders are also a hot-selling item, Wright said, for companies that find it better to destroy documents than store them.
Storage, in the form of file cabinets, is where some outfits are being won over to the paperless society, said Sue Thompson, president of Barrows, a Roanoke office furniture company.
Simply providing enough real estate to maintain extensive files can be a financial burden for some companies, she said.
One Barrows customer, an area manufacturer, recently reduced paper storage by scanning tax documents into its computer system and maintaining certain personnel records electronically.
"Between those two departments, they reduced their file capacity by half," Thompson said, adding that such examples are still rare, so her company doesn't foresee getting out of the file cabinet business anytime soon.
Is a paperless society really an apple-pie-and-mom sort of ideal?
Consider that the U.S. forest products industry employs 700,000 workers and registers annual sales of $170 billion.
Federal mandates to reduce paperwork "is not a major issue in our industry right now," said Barry Polsky, spokesman for the American Forest and Paper Association, a Washington, D.C. trade group.
"It hasn't bubbled up as an issue of great concern to us."
Should you write your congressman? Via e-mail?
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB