Greening Your Office and Read tips for Greening Your Office

I read a statistic that 60% of paper in the United States is still not recycled. There is no excuse for this! Paper is EASY to recycle. When I talk to friends and colleagues about this, they shrug their shoulders and say, "We don't have a recycling program in our building."

So start one! Time is ticking! Office furniture may be challenging to recycle, file cabinets I can understand, but paper? Come on! Each employee should have a recycle bin at his/her desk and recycle every single scrap of paper that cannot be re-used (see my tips this week on re-using paper among other things). Items should be thrown in the trash ONLY as a last ditch option. It seems that too many people recycle paper on a whim. It needs to be a standard practice.

I heard a story about an office in New York City that ONLY had recycle bins at each desk. No trash can. If employees want to throw away trash, they have to go to a central location in the office. What a fabulous idea.

Green Tip:
Greening Your Office

» Read tips for Greening Your Office

Flood Annapolis and If you can't recycle at home or your office, make it happen!

On Thursday, January 17th from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., I'm joining a group of activists to descend on Annapolis and demand that our elected officials find solutions to global warming. Maryland is one of the most vulnerable states when it comes to the effect of global warming. We need to demand that something is done now!

Green Tip:
If you can't recycle at home or your office, make it happen!

Don't be afraid to speak out! If you are unhappy with the recycling program for your jurisdiction or office building (or lack thereof), write your local officials and ask for change! Organize a petition within your neighborhood or office! There is no reason why we can't ALL recycle and reduce the amount of waste that goes into our overflowing landfills.

For information about recycling in your area, visit www.earth911.org.

Eliminating All the Stuff and The Story of Stuff

I recently moved my office and as a result, I've been in purge mode. I went through papers and magazines that I had hoped to read one day and finally realized it probably won't happen. I set aside those of critical importance that I am determined to read (what happened to that resolution to read 1 hour each day?).

I recycled paper that can't be used again and for paper that was only printed on one side, I made a stack that is now sitting at my printer for internal print jobs. I recycled magazines that are a few years old knowing that I will never have 2.3 seconds to look at them again.

The paper was easy to reuse and recycle, but the biggest cause of heart burn were all the tchotchkes - "stuff" that I picked up a trade shows, or sent by vendors, or received at an event or used at an event I once produced.

Do we really need all this STUFF??? Pens and post it notes are helpful, but think about the energy used to produce and ship this stuff only to have it end up in the landfill - many times after only one use. We are running out of earth on Mother Earth to accommodate all this stuff! Did you know that 99% of stuff is trashed in 6 months?

What am I going to do with it? Those that are still usable will go to my friend's kids -- unexpected gifts from Aunt Lori. Whoopie! For those that are re-giftable, I'm going to look on the website earth911.org to see if I can find a way to recycle it. And if not, my heartburn will return as the stuff goes to the landfill.

Green Tip:

Watch The Story of Stuff

I strongly urge you to take 20 minutes during your lunch break (if you get one) and watch this fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. It is VERY interesting, fun and funny to watch! It exposes the connections between the huge number of environmental and social issues and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world.

Reduce - Reuse - Recycle and Make a resolution to recycle more in 2008!

I feel that we are so overexposed to these words that we no longer think about what they really mean. We live in such a disposable economy and as a result, our landfills are filling up entirely too quickly. My goal each day is to NOT put items in the trash and figure out a way to

• not use it as much (reduce)
  
  
• reuse it if I can
  
  
• recycle it when I can no longer use it anymore

Reduce - the concept behind reducing is to reduce your overall consumption of EVERYTHING. Do you really need the item in the first place OR if you do need the item, can you get away with 100 vs. 500 of the item? Think of this when it comes to any document you print, the amount of food you serve at an event, or the number of guest gifts you provide your attendees to cite a few examples.

Reuse - is it something that can be reused? From vases and stones and sand for floral arrangements to signs to informational brochures to beverage napkins that have been untouched by human hands.

Recycle - if your jurisdiction has a recycling program, use it to the max! If it doesn't, write your local officials about starting one. There is no better time than now to talk to your local officials about green initiatives! Before you thrown ANYTHING away, ask yourself, can this be recycled? Check out the list in my Green Tip of the Week provided by Co-op America . Another great site is www.earth911.com.

Green Tip:

Make a resolution to recycle more in 2008!

Co-op America has a fabulous list of 21 Things You Didn't Know You Can Recycle. From appliances and batteries and cloths to technotrash, toothbrushes and razors, you'll find it all here!