It can be tough to transport your eco-ethics outside the home, particularly if you don’t want to annoy your friends and colleagues by coming across as preachy. Still, there are pretty simple ways to induce change in the workplace without drawing the ire of your coworkers. And the typical American office is certainly a place that could use some better waste management strategies. Take a look at paper, which represents far and away the largest portion of waste output from office-based industries. Here a full 72% of all waste is paper (technically categorized as all white and mixed office paper, newspaper and cardboard). And no matter where you work, there’s probably a fair amount of paper being shuffled around for various purposes, eventually to be tossed out. Quite simply, most workplaces use more paper than necessary. Here are a few simple suggestions for reducing paper waste at work. While some recommendations may not apply to your specific work situation, some surely will, and these should be easy enough to subtly implement at your job.
Set your printers to automatically print on both sides. Since most printed material is in various draft form or for personal reference, having this setting as a default probably shouldn’t be a problem. For official documents, a one-sided setting can easily be toggled on the printer or from the computer itself.
Likewise, photocopy on both sides of a sheet of paper.
E-mail, circulate or post memos, rather than photocopying them for everyone at work. Or, use routing slips to circulate paper memos, magazines and other documents so that only one copy is necessary.
Use Post-It fax notes rather than a full cover sheet for faxes.
Create a newspaper and magazine share or exchange program with coworkers.
Use presentation software (such as PowerPoint) or dry-erase boards rather than paper flip-charts for presentations.
Use undated, dry-erase wall calendars.
Keep a scrap paper collection box near copy machines and printers to reuse sheets that have only been printed on one side.
Don’t print out each memo or e-mail that you receive. Read and delete the messages you don’t need, and electronically file those you might need to reference but don’t yet need in hard copy.
Update your business’s mailing lists regularly and prevent wasteful mailings to obsolete contacts.
Read newspapers online, print out only articles you’d like to read off the screen, or share one newspaper or magazine subscription throughout the office.
Replace printed internal phone directories with electronic ones. ....read more
