This is a word with a double meaning.  Of course.  How could it be otherwise.  And each meaning holds one of the many keys to a greater level of sustainability and ecological responsibility for us homo sapiens.

First, to duplex is to photocopy on both sides of a sheet of paper.  Tell me.  Have you ever bought a newspaper which was printed on only one side of the sheet?  Of course not.  Why not?  Because it would be economic madness to do so.  How wasteful an idea.

And yet most of us do just that constantly, use only one side of a sheet of paper.  When we print from our wordprocessed documents, we print on a single side of the paper.  Why? It is far easier than feeding the sheet through twice, and most printers are not setup to duplex printing documents.  But it is often possible to do so with some extra effort.  In fact, my students (I teach college) are given extra credit when they hand in a paper printed on the backs of pre-used sheets from the massive boxes of such that are recycled or discarded daily at our school.  Even though recycling once-used paper is great, recycling twice-used paper is greater.

Even when we design our documents, however, we automatically design them for the common paradigm, an often sparse document.  Think of the amount of white space on the last office memo or agenda that was printed at your work.

So the paradigm shift I am suggesting is to start designing your documents to be printed on both sides of the sheet.  Instead of conceptualizing putting all you have to say on a single side of one page, think of putting it on both sides.   If it is an extremely sparse document, think of printing it 2-up (two on a single side, split before distributing each half), or 4-up (only 2 cuts required to give 4 times as many), or more-up.

If the document will be photocopied for distribution, take the time to think how it can be converted to a duplex document.  This is often as easy as a single key press on the copier.  Sometimes it takes printing alternate pages and figuring out how to load the half-printed pages back into the copier drawer with the correct orientation.  But once you’ve figured that out, you needn’t do it again for that copier.

Is it worth all the effort?  Is having a habitable planet worth the extra effort of forethought?  I think so.

A duplex is also a home built for two families. This key is more subtle. While most families prefer to occupy their own homes, some live in duplexes. Duplexes make for really close neighbors and that’s a good thing.  Sharing those common walls makes for an economy of energy use in heating and cooling, even in the amount of materials used to construct the dwelling since each family essentially only requires 3 1/2 walls (7 walls to enclose them both) and a common roof.  Alternately, each only requires 4 walls, but “one man’s floor is another man’s ceiling” (pardon the gender asymetry of our English language).

The significance of duplexing to our survival is even more subtle than the economics of multi-family housing.  Take a look at the word apartment… a single dwelling that holds familiss and singles apart from one another.  Here comes the paradigm shift again.  If instead we thought of it as a togetherment, think of how different our society might be.  The key here is that we MUST start thinking of our existence on earth as a togetherment if we are to save the planet from our present unsustainable habits of consumption and non-coexistence.