I don’t know about you, but I work in an office that goes through a LOT of paper. Every time I reload the printer I can’t help but cringe at the dead trees I’m holding in my hand.
I could go on about more sustainable alternatives for paper, but I won’t do that (today). The point of this post is to introduce you to what I like to call the Office Green Initiative.
The fact that my office goes through so much paper drives me crazy. I’ve been here two years, and I finally was able to implement a recycling program.
I wotk with a 72-year-old who is a little bit behind on green-sense. So what I did was set up a trash barrel with a sign over it that lists the acceptable items for recycling. That way, he can see exactly what goes in there (and doesn’t have to ask me several times a day). Conveniently, my town doesn’t require separation of recyclables, so it all goes into one bucket and it’s fine.
Of course, not everything can go straight into recycling. As I am a financial planner, a LOT of personal information ends up on our documents. Those documents must be shred, and the shreds go in their own paper bag to be recycled.
So far I’ve made several trips to the town recycling center with material from my office. It’s not a perfect system- I often find myself fishing paper and plastic bottles out of the trash because my coworkers haven’t caught on yet. But I have faith that we can fix that, and we’ll continue to become a green office.
What do YOU do at work to keep the Earth clean and green? Let me know in the comments!
Stephanie Jean 
I work from home, but as a family of 3, we have a heaping full recycle bin each week, but not even one full bag of trash. We also return our bottles and cans for cash, so that makes it fun. 🙂
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That’s wonderful! It’s just my fiance and I at home, but we two only have a small bag of trash and a huge container of recyclables every week! Isn’t it cool to see how much you can actually recycle once you begin? 🙂
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When I worked in an office one of the first things I did was create a separate bin for paper waste (just out of a cardboard box) and put a big recycling sign on it. Some people would still casually screw up waste paper and put it in the usual bin beside it, but over time, with a bit of coaxing (me quietly moving their waste paper into the recycling bin) it worked out well. I did look into sourcing recycled paper for use in the printers, but the cost difference couldn’t be justified, but the regular paper used was supplied from ‘sustainable sources’ so this seems acceptable.
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That’s awesome, Brian! It really is too bad using recycled materials, like paper, isn’t more cost effective, but I’m hoping that will be a change we get to see in our lifetime.
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