THREE Easy tips for staying waste-free at work
It can be sometimes difficult to practice being green in the work place, with the phones constantly ringing, email alerts by the minute and your boss creating a since of urgency. How do we find time to keep our environment clean in the work place? Sounds impossible right? Well, here a few tips to keep you on the right path.
1) Reuse your printing paper and turn the pages into a note book!
After your done printing and reading that report, flip the pages over to the back and use it as your daily notes!
2) Make your supplies last longer!
Reaching for a dried-out pen during a stressful workday can make you want to pull your hair out. But it can also lead to prematurely tossing your supplies. Are there really ways to make office supplies last longer? Absolutely.
The ink in your pens, highlighters and markers tends to dry up faster if they aren’t being used regularly. So, try using your writing implements one-at-a-time to ensure they won’t end up forgotten in the back of your desk. And try to keep your pen tips clean.
Inks naturally coagulate at the tip of your pen, making them trickier to write with over time. To avoid plastic waste (and frustration), wipe the tip of your pen with a cloth after each use, and store pens with tips pointing upward to prevent clogging.
Also, keep all pens, markers and glue sticks in a cool, dry place – like inside a desk drawer or closet. Heat and exposure to direct sunlight can cause inks and glues to dry up and harden.
3) Shrink your energy foot print
Computers, printers and other office necessities can use up loads of energy, racking up enormous bills and expanding the footprint of your workplace. While office energy use may seem nearly impossible to avoid, you can dramatically cut down on your kilowatt-hours with a few easy steps.
If you work from home, put all of your electronics on a power strip, and flip the switch off when items are not in use to avoid vampire power. And take a moment to adjust your computer’s settings to optimize battery usage and hibernate after a period of inactivity.
If you work in an office, talk to your supervisors and IT department about adjusting the settings on all of your office computers and installing power strips. Your bosses will likely be receptive when you tell them how much money it could save.