Green Office: 4 Steps to an Environmentally-Friendly Office

At home, you recycle your bottles and cans, compost, and use organic household cleaning supplies. Your neighbors know you to be environmentally conscious, but does your green lifestyle end as you pull into the parking lot at work? It doesn't have to be so! In this green lifestyle article, we'll show you four easy steps to turn your office into an environmentally-friendly, green zone.

The Green Office Tip #1: Tree-friendly printing!

In an office, you can only avoid using paper so much. Paper is an essential part of the office environment, but you can lessen your environmental impact by taking a tree-friendly approach to printing at work. Of course, the obvious: Use recycled paper. You can buy recycled paper at any office supply store. Recycled paper conserves trees, as well as the water and energy used to manufacture new paper.

You can cut your paper use even more by printing on both sides of the page. Why is conserving paper so important? According to Conservatree, it takes a whopping 24 trees to fill up just one pallet of copier paper (source). Therefore, just one ream of paper (500 sheets of paper) takes 6% of a tree and, as Conservatree points out, those add up very, very quickly! (source)

The Green Office Tip #2: Turn on your computer's energy-saving features...

All computers have built-in energy-saving features that put the computer to "sleep" when its not used for a short amount of time. By letting your computer "sleep" when not in use, you save considerable amounts of energy and carbon dioxide emissions.

The Green Office Tip #3: ...Or switch to a laptop!

A laptop offers more than just mobile flexibility: Laptops also use considerably less energy than desktop computers. Also, using a laptop computer to get work done from your home office saves on gas and fuel emissions.

While you're shopping for a new earth-friendly computer, add earth-friendly, green office supplies to your shopping list. TheGreenOffice.com offers pointers on this. Keep an eye out for pencils made from recycled material, paper clips made from recycled plastic, etc.

The Green Office Tip #4: Recycle your office's printer ink and copier toner cartridges!

Offices use a lot of ink from printers, scanners and copiers. Instead of tossing used office printer ink cartridges into the trash where they're sent to the landfill (often contributing toxic chemicals into the environment!), recycle them. Many recycling programs will even pay you for your used cartridges.

Is your office green enough? With these eco-conscious tips, you're well on your way to an earth-friendly, green office!