Greening the Office

It has been just over a month since we started our green initiative around the office. We have focused on changing our daily routines and product usage. To date, we have been quite successful. Yes, there have been a few naysayers but most everyone is pitching in.

Greening the Office Accomplishments:

1. Recycling program in conjunction with Recycle Ann Arbor. We now collect, sort and deliver white paper, mixed paper, newspaper, magazines, books, cardboard, plastic, and styrofoam.
2. Electronic recycling with Recycle Ann Arbor and Best Buy. Best Buy will accept our old monitors, computers, etc for a $10 fee but they give us a $10 gift card.
3. We have been in the process of switching out lighting throughout the office with compact fluorescent light bulbs. The only notable difference is in our main conference room - the existing dimmer switches are no longer effective.
4. Normal copier and printer paper (letter, legal, ledger and letterhead) have been replaced with recycled paper products. Not are we being environmentally friendly, the cost per ream of paper has been reduced by about $0.25.
5. Additionally, we have set the default on our copiers to the duplex setting. Multi-page documents will be printed on two sides unless otherwise changed by the user.
6. As our existing cleaning supplies have dwindled and needed to be replaced, we have switched to green cleaning supplies for the carpets, bathrooms, windows, and countertops/surfaces.
7. We have also switched to recycled paper products for napkins, paper towels, and toilet paper.

Hopefully, we are just beginning and can sustain the current momentum. Other changes we are looking at include: motion sensor light switches, recycled paper for a large format printing, and more. Please leave a comment if you have other ideas that have worked at your office.