Wachovia/Wells Fargo gives its ATMs a green makeover.

Take for example, Wachovia/Wells Fargo's newest line of ATM machines. At first I was thinking to myself, how can an ATM machine really be green unless it's running off solar energy or something like that.  So I decided to do some more investigation.  Right away, I realized that these ATMs do much more than the machines that I use.  In addition to doling out cash, and accepting both check and cash deposits, these Wachovia/Wells Fargo ATMs also sell postage stamps. Handy, but what makes these guys green? The machines do it all without envelopes! I can't really wrap my head around the technology behind it, perhaps some sort of scanning mechanism, but the ATMs have already "saved more than 225 tons of paper or more than 4,000 trees," according to the WTOC in Savannah. The Georgian city recently experienced an ATM town makeover when all of its standard ATMs were transformed into green ones.

It was probably an expensive upfront cost to change over the ATM machines, but in the end, it will most likely end up saving the company lots of money by eliminating paper and labor costs. Plus, most importantly, it's helping out on the environment in an area where the bank can have an impact.

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