Be Green at Work! Green Office Tips You Can Start Using Today
So you’ve decided to be more aware of what you consume and throw away. You’ve probably been recycling and reusing at home and now you’d like to tackle the office. More offices, schools, and municipalities are getting serious about recycling so your co-workers and bosses should be receptive if you bring a recycling plan to work. Here’s some green office tips that will get you started.
1) Use natural light as much as possible. If your office has alot of windows, leave the lights off as much as possible. There’s no reason to ignore a free light sourceand your utility bill will thank you.
2) Start a recycling program for aluminum cans and plastic bottles if you don’t already have one in place. Chances are that your Human Resources department could use the proceeds to fund a summer company picnic or donate to a local charity in your companies name.
3) Recycle your paper products. Your waste removal company will usually take the money they make recycling your paper products off your bill if you ask them to. All you have to do is call.
4) Keep live green plants all over the office. Living plants have been proven to have a calming effect on people and they reduce the amount of noxious gasses emitted by paint, carpet, and new building odors.
5) Set your thermostat in the office a few degrees cooler in the winter and a few degrees warmer in the summer to save energy.
6) If you have a kitchen in your office, set aside used coffee grounds ( filter included ) for any co-workers who have gardens. (You’ll be amazed at how appreciative they are of your going green at the office efforts when their gardens look even better.) You can also ask your landscaping contractor if they will take your vegetable/coffee kitchen scraps to add to their compost piles.
7) Stop using disposible cups, plates, utensils, etc. Have each employee bring their own coffee cup to work and dishes if they use them everyday. Washing or rinsing your dishes off once a day has a lesser impact on the environment than throwing away plastic or styrofoam items everyday.
Ask your housekeeping contractor to use green cleaning supplies as much as possible. Simple Green (http://www.simplegreen.com/) is a excellent environmentally friendly cleaner and can be used on most surfaces. Also as if they can use cloth towels to clean surfaces instead of using paper towels that will be thrown away.
9) Be as paperless as possible. If you can email an invoice or receipt to your vendor/customer, it then becomes their responsibility to print a paper copy. An unused peice of paper is better than a used peice of paper that has to be recycled.
10) Something that can really add up over time in a big company is to replace all your light bulbs with compact florescent bulbs as they burn out. CFL bulbs last 8 – 15 times longer than normal bulbs and they use 25% of the power. The only complication with using these bulbs is that they contain mercury and must be disposed of in a proper manner.
There are many other things you can do in the office to be green at work. If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, please feel free to email us and we will check it out.