In case you haven’t heard yet, this week is Earth Week, and Friday April 22nd is Earth Day! Many people have regular recycling habits at home (ie, separating soda cans, bottles, newspapers and milk cartons from their regular trash), but how about when you’re at work? Does your office or place of business have areas for recycling? Are there certain things they require from employees in regards to recycling or being ‘Green’ each day?
If the answer is no, tell your boss or your employees that recycling isn’t just for the home. Here are a few of my favorite, easy-to-do tips:
- Separate daily newspapers, magazines and printing paper from all other garbage.
- Have a designated area for all soda cans and water bottles near the regular trash so employees and co-workers see it as they are throwing away their garbage.
- Use iPads or power points to give presentations instead of printing several pages of text and images for each employee to look at during meetings, then throw away immediately following the meeting.
- Use email as a replacement for paper memos. Email co-workers and employees instead of printing, or writing, a memo on a piece of paper.
- Add plants around the office: “Adding plants to your office environment will help to greatly improve the quality of the air, reduce the amount of air pollutants and reduce stress levels.” Check out the best 11 plants for your office via Carribean Mist.
- Use energy efficient light bulbs. Make sure to turn off all computers and lights when the office is empty overnight and on weekends.
These tips are easy to do and easy for everyone to become accustomed to.
I am proud to say that JSN is a Green Certified Business. We utilize a virtual office and most of our employees work from a home or local coffee shops, saving on fuel and transportation each day. We also use a project management system for all of our client files and information, minimizing our paper usage. The majority of our work is done via the Internet and we share information through the cloud, so we rarely print anything. We keep in touch with each other via the project management system, G-Chat, Skype and email. Plus, we all regularly recycle in our home lives (and home offices)!!
A few great green Facebook Pages to keep an eye on:
A few great green and eco-friendly blogs to keep an eye on:
Is there anything you do at your workplace that you would like to share?
Happy Earth Week Everyone!
Great post! We started doing some of these things recently around the office, like placing recycling containers in the lunchroom, because few people are going to seek out a recycling bin; it has to be convenient. At first, it confused a lot of people who were used to placing everything in the trash or didn’t know what was recyclable, but everyone’s getting better now! We assume everyone knows how to recycle, but it hasn’t really been taught universally.
It’s true that there’s room for improvement everywhere! There are so many ways to reduce waste in the office that we put a small list together, too.
Here’s to hoping our good habits last!
Thanks Audrey! I have been recycling for YEARS and am always surprised to find out that people have not made this a regular occurrence in their lives. I am glad it is working out so far at your job as well!