Guest Post – Reduce Office Waste and Save Money
Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by Jen in Eco-Office Products, Green Tips
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Isn’t everyone looking for ways to reduce waste and make an environmental difference without breaking the bank? Being green shouldn’t have to cost a fortune.
Here are 5 changes you can make in your office that will save you (and your office) money!
- Reduce your paper consumption. Americans throw away 4.5 million tonnes of paper annually. Set up scrap paper receptacles at copy stations for notes and drafting. Print memos and other interoffice information on the back sides of old prints. Beef up your electronic filing system and ditch paper altogether and send as much as you can via email. According to WWF, a company with 5,000 employees who double-side printed only 10% of their copies, could save up to $260,000 USD.
Change your whiteboard markers to a non-toxic alternative. Xylene, found in many brands of whiteboard markers, is a known neurotoxin. If that doesn’t make you gasp for some clean air, try this: one AusPen is equal to 41 traditional white board markers. And unlike AusPen markers, none of the disposable marker’s packaging is recyclable. Still not convinced? Using AusPen’s saves companies money – a traditional whiteboard marker (bought from a regular supplier) typically costs between $0.50 – $1.00 each. An AusPen is $0.28 (when you calculate using it through one of its life cycles – including the refill)
- Start a coffee and/or takeout “swear jar”. According to Eco Defence Fund, Starbucks goes through 1.9 billion disposable cups. And while they have introduced a 10% post consumer paper cup, that’s still a lot of cups going to the landfill. Try collecting money from those who use disposable cups. Charge anyone who uses disposable take out containers. If just $1 a day was collected your swear jar could earn approximately $260 a year (based on a 5 day work week). That’s enough to buy an espresso coffee maker for your office’s kitchen!
- Install a water filtration system right on the kitchen faucet. According to the Clean Air Council, 2.5 million plastic water bottles are thrown away every hour in America. Give everyone a stainless steel water bottle and cut down on disposable plastic bottles. A filtration system costs approximately $150 -$250 USD a year (according to Costco) but buying just one bottle a day would cost just one person $130 – $260 a year.
- Revamp your bathroom recycling. Reduce paper towel waste by switching to a hand dryer. It may be a higher start up cost but the long term cost savings of buying paper towels, cleaning trash bins and replacing towels will easily make up for this. WWF has estimated that we flush about 270,000 trees down the toilet – a day. Put a note in each stall that tells your fellow co-workers and make the switch to recycled toilet paper.
Remember – when you make changes, communicate them. Explaining the cost and environmental savings will likely result in increased acceptance and participation.
Written by Eco-Smart World’s blog editor, Crystal Henrickson
Eco-Smart World is the North American distributor for the AusPen
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13 Responses to “Guest Post – Reduce Office Waste and Save Money”
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Reducing Waste and Saving Money at the office is easier than you think. | ecosmartworld.com
03. Feb, 2009
[...] Check out our guest post with the Eco-Office Gals for 5 things you can do to save you and your business money as well as reducing your footprint. [...]
Chelle from Pittsburgh Junk Removal
07. Feb, 2009
Great tips – you’ve got a good point about saving enough to buy the office an Expresso machine!
We’ve been trying to brainstorm for environmentally friendly alternatives to direct mail – I’d hate to see all that paper be used on something so many people might just toss out.
Chelle´s last blog post..Warmer Temperatures Expected This Weekend
easy ways to save money
09. Feb, 2009
Nice post
Everyone can save money in small and seemingly insignificant areas if you know how and where to do it.
These are all great ideas
Great tips! I’ll be coming back to learn more about saving money!
Penny
14. Feb, 2009
Exactly, the great thing about reducing waste at work is it gives you money to use in other areas.
Residual Retirement Builder
09. May, 2009
What a perfect way to go green in an enviroment that needs to save paper I also like to keep things electronic as much as possible.
Mike Griffin from home water filtration systems
13. Aug, 2009
Current thought is that not only should the plastic water bottles not be thrown away but that they be replaced by stainless steel or some other more healthful material.
Filtering water even if it is not to refill water bottles is also great. Chlorine and other chemicals in water are not the most healthful for us. Many experience remarkable cures after switching to filtered water.
Mike Griffin @ home water filtration systems´s last blog ..Before You Buy A Reverse Osmosis Filter
Jack from grohe faucets
17. Sep, 2009
Yeah, its amazing how different some states are with issues such as recycling. California has a lot of ways to encourage recycling, while states like utah throw everything into 1 giant bin.
Phoebe from part time home jobs
02. Oct, 2009
Nice tips to save money while helping the environment.
One could also find part time jobs in the internet like SEO article writing, article spinning, blog posting, podcasting, and many more.
In this time of financial crisis, we should double up our efforts, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
I hope there are many more ideas that will pop up in the net. I got many ideas here on how to earn extra money, and I want to share it.
Glory to all of you who are helping each other to be financially stable.
But always remember to never forget spending quality time with our family. God bless us all.
Stan from Black Kitchen Faucet
10. Oct, 2009
Thank you for this nice tips, it is definitely worth the effort to reduce waste.
Stan@Black Kitchen Faucet´s last blog ..Remarkable Features of Danze Kitchen Faucet that makes it Saleable
Darvin from Ionic Air Purifiers
09. Nov, 2009
All great ideas! People often tell me how difficult it is to get their companies to be more “environmentally friendly”, but there are a few things on your list which employees likely don’t need employer approval to do… like using less paper ro your “swear jar” idea!
Enough with the excuses people…
Darvin @ Ionic Air Purifiers´s last blog ..Ozone Air Purifier – Warning!
Jeff from French Milled Soap
28. Nov, 2009
I love your tips, especially the ones involving health like the whiteboard markers and the filtered water. I can’t say no to things that are eco friendly and health friendly as well. Thanks
Jeff @ French Milled Soap´s last blog ..About
Duncan
18. Jan, 2010
Cracking ideas, of course tech can help too.
If your company fills in a lot of forms, maybe they have engineers out and about who need to fill in job-sheets – there is a HUGE amount of paper wasted.
Not only that, but money too.
A product called ElectroForms – http://www.mobileelectronicforms.com – addresses the paper-waste issue by providing an extremely usable data capture alternative to paper based forms.
Angie from Car Fire Extinguisher
22. Jan, 2010
I got rid of the fax machine recently and have all my faxes to go directly to my computer. I will never go back. I print out what i want and nothing more. Thanks for the tips.