Anywhere you go it is tough to keep your place waste free. The best that you can do is to minimize or manage it. The office is one such place that is tough to keep tidy what with all the paper and other supplies needed to run daily operations. It does seem like an impossible task. But if you are an eco-friendly person, you will find ways to manage this problem.
The trick here is to make certain changes in your daily habits. Here are 5 tips that you can do to make your working space a bit more earth friendly.
- Reuse boxes. This is one way of saving on packing materials. When you receive packages that are boxed, save these so you can recycle them when you need to send packages out.
- Pack your lunch. You can save yourself from contributing to packaging wastes by packing your own lunch and snack in a reusable lunch container. Aside from that, you can actually save a few extra cash in the long run by doing so.
The average American employee forks out about $37 on a weekly basis for buying lunch every day. That is a total of about $2,000 per year. In the same manner, employees also spend about $1,000 on to-go coffee every year. That means more paper cups are consumed and thrown. These cups are tough to recycle. Bringing a reusable cup saves you from adding to this mess.
The good thing about packing your lunch and bringing your own mug is that you do not have to throw away paper cups and boxed packaging for lunch every day.
- Distribute memos via email. 10,000 pieces of paper is what the average American uses to copy documents and memos. That makes for an equivalent of 4,000,000 tons of paper wasted for such onetime use only. This means that there is a lot to be desired regarding your paper usage.
Enter two of the best inventions of the digital world. These are the internet and electronic mail or e-mail. If you need to send documents to people within and out of your office, including to your workers compensation lawyer, you can it to them by using the internet and sending them emails. This will save you a lot of waste. If you need to present something to your boss or company meetings, do it on your computer and present it to them.
If you have to print something, pick out those that need to be printed. Where it is possible, try to use the backside of the paper as well. If you ever use paper, remember to recycle it at least once.
- Use sustainable products. This is where going green comes along. As much as possible, try to use can add health to the environment. These should not cause any kind of ailment to others. Things that you need to avoid are Styrofoam and chalk.
- Choose Recycled Products. There are a lot of office supplies that are now manufactured from recycled materials. In fact you now can buy recycled ink and toners for your copiers and printers. The truth is that if you buy a cartridge, when it sees it’s last days, it will be dumped into a landfill for plastic and metal. Unfortunately, this is a sad reality that one cannot escape from. What you can do is delay it’s deposit in a landfill by using it for as long as you can. You can do this by refilling it with ink and toner.
These are just a few simple things that you can do to limit or eliminate the amount of waste in your place of work.
Author Bio: Paul Gilbert is a professional blogger, an enthusiast who loves to write on several niches including Insurance, Personal Injury, workers compensation attorney & Social Security Disability. He is also a part-time consultant at Zea Proukou, providing best solutions & support to injured workers for claiming workplace injury benefits under Workers’ Compensation.