Greening the Office  

If you work in an office environment here are some useful pointers to encourage personnel to adopt a greener approach.

Reducing your waste is about being efficient. Put simply, reducing your waste means that you use less (and therefore spend less), get more out of what is used, and reuse or recycle any unavoidable wastes. By increasing efficiency in this way, businesses can save valuable resources and help the environment. So saving resources and cutting down on waste not only makes business sense, but also helps keep our environment clean and safe!

Did You Know?

Every office dweller bins rubbish weighing the equivalent of 100 telephone directories each year

Rubbish can cost businesses up to 5 % of it’s annual turnover

Operating office equipment can cost much more than the equipment costs them in the first place. For example, a photocopier that costs you Є4,000 to buy, left on continuously for seven years over its two million copies life, may consume Є1,500 of electricity, Є24,000 of paper and Є15,000 of toner. The greenhouse gas emissions from supplying energy for power stations, manufacturing and disposing of the paper you use could exceed 80 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to more than the total greenhouse gas emissions of a typical home over that seven-year period.

 Doing Nothing is not an Option

Reduce Reuse Recycle

Here are some easy tips to improve your office’s environmental impact:

1.   Each office worker scribbles his or her way through a staggering two trees-worth of paper every year!  Cut your paperwork in half by printing and photocopying on both sides of your paper, by using scrap paper in the fax machine or for making notes on rather than buying new note pads. Set up a draft paper drawer in your printer to print draft documents on the back of slightly used paper

2.     Put memos on the notice board (or circulate around the office) rather than photocopying multiple copies.  Better still, use e-mail.

3.     Proof-read documents and read emails on screen rather than printing them out

4.     Reuse shredded newspaper / paper for packaging

5.     Set up a recycling scheme in the office for used paper

6.     A massive 80% of office waste can be stationery, so there is huge potential for recycling and buying recycled.  High quality and competitively priced recycled paper, as well as recycled envelopes, fax paper, labels, files, flip charts, storage boxes and sticky notes are available, so there’s no excuse!  Buy items which can be recycled easily: envelopes without windows, non-glossy paper

7.     We all know that tea tastes better from a real mug so use proper cups in your office kitchen along with re-useable plates and cutlery. 

8.     Use salt & pepper shakers instead of pre-packed sachets

9.     Set up aluminum can recycling scheme in your kitchen or canteen.  Aluminum drink cans are worth money, so schemes like this are a good way to raise funds for charity or a worthy cause. 

10. Reuse incoming boxes for outgoing deliveries

11. Don't dump used printer, fax and photocopier cartridges - most suppliers and many charities collect returns

12. The mountain of unused mobile phones just keeps on growing.  Many charities collect old mobile phones for recycling. 

13. Make use of computer and electronic recycling schemes for old equipment

14. Separate office paper, cardboard, newspapers, plastic bottles and organic waste and get it recycled - you will save money as well as the environment

15. Have a garden composter for organic waste like teabags, fruit peelings

16. In the canteen, encourage staff to take only the number of serviettes and condiments they really need

17. Repair old or unused office furniture and equipment or donate it to charity

18.  Buy reusable and refillable items such as toner cartridges, tape dispensers and mechanical pencils

19. Use natural light whenever possible, turn off lights & office machines when not needed, unscrew unneeded light bulbs, replace light bulbs with lower wattage or compact fluorescents.

20. Computer screen savers are energy wasters. Most computers use about twice as much energy lighting up the screen as they use for processing. Originally, screen savers were designed to stop screens being burnt by a constant image, but they aren't needed for modern screens. Not only can screen savers use as much energy as a full screen of work, but many require considerable processing energy as well. If you want to save energy you can set your screen saver to 'none' or 'blank screen.'

21. When using computers and monitors:

· Switch them off outside working hours. If some of your staff won't do this, consider installing software to switch their computers off automatically

· You can switch off the monitor if a computer is being used as a server and the monitor is not required

· Switch off your computer whenever you are away from your desk for an hour or more or for whatever shorter time you find convenient

· Experiment with your power management time settings to find the shortest convenient times that suit you

· Investigate using floppy, zip and compact disks or tape instead of paper filing systems

· Optimise electronic communication methods including email, forms and transactions. This reduces the financial and environmental costs of paper manufacture and supply, imaging, and transporting hard copy documents by mail or courier

· Reduce margin settings and type sizes on your computer so that the printer uses less paper. Common default settings for computers are 12-point type and 3.175 cm (1.25 inch) left and right hand margins. Using 11-point type and 2.54 cm (1 inch) left hand margins and 1.27 cm (0.5 inch) right hand margins can increase the amount of information you can fit on a page by up to 27% and save paper. This still allows ample margins for binding and hardcopy filing.

The bottom line is that rethinking office resource use and rubbish can save businesses money.  So what are you waiting for?

A green office is a smarter and better office

Useful Links to Additional Information on Greening the Office available on the www:

Irish EPA information on Waste including licensing, BAT, waste classification and landfill

Irish based ENFO basic information on Waste Management

Repak for Irish packaging information

Race Against Waste

Waste Information for Small Business in Ireland

Recycling Directory of Ireland

Wastenot general waste information

Enterprise Ireland environmental Best Practice Guides and Case Studies

EU Environment Agency information on Material Flow and Waste and Recyclable Resources across the EU

EU Environment Agency information on Waste Facilities, Reducing Waste

EU Environment Commission information on Waste

NI Wake up to Waste Campaign

UK Environment Agency Guidance on Waste Management

London based Waste Information source

Recycling Mobile Phones UK

UK based Rethink Rubbish

Green Meetings -- US EPA information on opportunities for conference planners and suppliers that can help reduce pollution, energy use, and water use at a conference.

US based Earth911 site devoted to recycling and re-use

Waste, Recycle City, Recycle and Waste Reduction information from the  US EPA

Recycler's World

Global Recycling network

Canadian information on Waste Management

Canadian Guide to a Green Office

US based Green Office Guide

Australian Green Office Guide

NZ Green Office Guide

Links to other sources of Environmental Information