How to be Green at the office / Work

• Author: DigitalMind
• Filed under: Uncategorized
• Date: May 3,2008

This article contains tips on how to be green at the office / the workplace. I wrote about being green at home and I hope you’re all trying, now it’s time to do the same while at work. Although it may seem like a lot of effort to be green, when you do it long enough it will simply become a way of life. This shouldn’t be a matter of if you do it or not, it’s a matter of when, and the answer should be now.

You obviously can’t force your employers to be green if they don’t want to, but there are a few things that you can do on your own that will help!

1) Being green at work starts with getting to work. Use your bike, public transportation, or walk if any of these are possible. Some people live too far from public transit and have no choice but to drive, however if you drive I hope you’re car-pooling and picking up a few of your coworkers along the way? You’ll save the environment, and you’ll save money on gas since you’re all pitching in!

2) Keep a coffee mug and a cup at work. No need to use 20 miniature styrofoam or plastic cups every day for your coffee, water, whatever… Bring youself a nice mug / cup and leave it there. Wash it out after you use it or BEFORE you use it (depending on the situation)

3) If you pack a lunch every day, don’t wrap things in saran-wrap or aluminium foil. Use recyclable tupperware style containers. Buy them once, and use them for years. You’ll be saving the environment every day!

4) Recycle paper. Hopefully your entire office recycles and you have different garbages for paper and other. If you don’t, you can still recycle! Keep your scrap pieces of paper (Bad print jobs, draft prints of whatever) and use the back side for temporary notes and scribbles. It never hurts to have a small stack of scrap paper that has old useless stuff printed on one side. Personally I use a lot of “note paper” so I use every little inch of it until it’s too hard to find what I want. Of course the best thing is to type your notes in notepad and not use any paper at all ! However you don’t always have a computer in front of you.

5) If you have your own desk or office, there should be atleast one plant on / in there ! Office plants provide an inexpensive method of cleansing the air of the toxic gasses emitted from modern office equipment and adds oxygen to stale air. Read this nice little article about how to choose a good office plant.

Do these 5 things, and you’ll be helping the environment, youself, and your office on a daily basis. Do just one, and you’re still contributing. Every little bit counts !