Thu 11

Feb

2010

Five easy eco-tips for the office

Here are five easy eco tips to make your office greener:

Easy notepads:
If your office uses a lot of paper, before recycling build a stack of about 50 sheets, then cut into quarters leaving 4 smaller stacks of paper. Attach a bulldog clip to the top, and you have your own eco-friendly notepad, sketch pad or jotter. You won’t need to buy any more and you can re-use the clip afterwards. When finished, recycle the paper as normal!

Reuse padded envelopes:
If you receive a padded envelope through the post, instead of tearing them carefully open the top, being careful not to rip the paper too much.  The envelope can then be reused again. Simply put a label with the new address over the old one, stick a layer of tape over the opening at the top. Once secure you can post it again. This can be done several times!

Ditch the plastic cups:
By that we mean the disposable throw-away cups- the type where you drink a coffee then throw the cup away. This can produce an extortianate amount of waste as hundreds of cups can be thrown out every day.  The simple solution is bring your own cup! If you have a vending machine, most will allow you to put your own cup when the drink is dispensed so the plastic cup won’t appear. You’ll get a bigger hot drink,  and a nicer looking mug.

Switch Off: Energy usage of many companies and households is sky-high, yet so many computers are left on overnight unnessecarily. If they are not used overnight, give them – and the environment – a break by switching them off overnight when you go home. Turn off photocopiers, printers, monitors and lights, and make sure phones and chargers are unplugged to save more energy. Remember lower energy bills also mean more savings. It is said that a computer left on overnight produces the equivelant of enough carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) to fill a double decker bus.

Turn down the heat: Your heating costs will go up by 8% each time you increase the temperature by just one degree. A 2°C increase in office temperature creates enough CO2 in a year to fill a hot air balloon. Turn down the heating, put on some warmer clothes if you feel cool and you’ll see your bills – and environmental impact go down. Never ever have the heating on and windows open at the same time- it is one of the worst wastes of energy possible.

In addition to these tips, consider interior landscaping using a range of office plants to cleanse the air and add greenery inside offices. Office plants are known to also reduce the amount of VOX chemicals and computer emissions inside offices. For those who don’t want to spend time caring for plants, landscaping services can normally do this for you.

Please do not print this page

115 billion sheets of paper are used annually for PC printers.
Source: id2.ca/downloads/eco-design-paper-facts.pdf