Top Green Office Products for Your Business

I've got to be honest that the green movement never appealed to me in the beginning. It originally appeared as just another bandwagon for people to jump on to stand on their soapboxes.

But as the green movement continues to permeate business and people in their everyday lives, there are some merits to buying into green. From a business or just regular resident's perspective, it saves money. And then, there's the obvious positive environmental perspective, that you're helping the environment.

Office products tend to be a significant area where we waste energy and money and continue to enlarge our carbon footprints. So, here are just some of the office products on the market today that can help you green your work or home offices and save dollars in the process.

Printer Cartridges

Refills: Reusing via refilling a printer cartridge is one way to go. The stigma of buying from a no-name brand has been erased as the refill industry has taken off. Even if you may not be able to print as much with a refill, you still end up saving in the long run. Canon and Lexmark are among the many companies that have gotten into the refill business. Additionally, print quality of a no-name brand is still the same as buying a brand name, throwaway cartridge.

Soy: SoyPrint is selling soy ink for laser printers. The toner is made from soybeans. According to the company, the soy cartridges could replace up to 2 liters of oil each (the same amount used for one oil-based ink cartridge). Not much information is listed on the company's web site. However, according to reports, prices start at around $60, which is relatively comparable to other laser printer cartridge prices.
www.soyprint.net

Paper

Don't Print: This would be the obvious, but ask yourself or your employees if they really need to print. On e-mails, spread the word. Many employees have added notes such as "Think Twice Before Printing" or similar messages within their electronic signatures. If you really need to print and need multiple pages, print on both sides of the paper.

Recycled Paper: Every major office supply company is jumping on this bandwagon and offers some form of recycled paper to the consumer. Try Xerox's recycled paper. It is 30 percent post consumer waste and 92 bright, so it doesn't look recycled.

Lighting

Motion Sensors: Aside from telling people to turn off lights when they leave the office, or you turning off a light when you leave the room, motion sensor lighting also does the trick. Something like the Motionbulb, flicks on and off depending on whether someone is coming or going. The cool thing is that the bulb works with any light socket and can last as long as 5 years.
www.elights.com

LEDs: Any LED product will do as they consume less than 25 percent of the typical amount of electricity fluorescent or halogen lighting uses. Check out LED Waves' web site for office LED office lighting, such as recessed lights, panels, light bars and regular bulbs. They also sell lights for pathways or streets.
www.ledwaves.com

Power Usage

Ecostrip Power Bar: Get a power bar that's smart. Replace your traditional bar with an Ecostrip that knows when your computer is turned off and automatically turns off everything else off along with it (printer, scanner, speakers, etc.). You basically plug everything in like a regular strip and the Ecostrip does everything else.
www.theecostrip.com

Encore Thin Client: This is a product ideal for a small- or medium-sized business, according to the Encore web site. Essentially this product allows you to reduce your office's power use by allowing multiple employees share a computer's power capabilities.
www.encore-usa.com

Computers

Notebook: Hewelett-Packard's Compaq Presario CQ40-100 Series Notebook is ENERGY STAR rated. The designation, created by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indicates that the products use less energy and could help users save money. Oftentimes, ENERGY STAR products can be used for tax breaks and other incentives to the user. It operates under Windows Vista, has a 2.4 GHz processor, 250 GB hard drive storage and 4 GB of RAM.
www.hp.com

Desktop: Dell's OptiPlex line promises to help users cut energy costs and also shrink their carbon footprints. The standard 360 model has an Intel Celeron Processor 440, 80 GB hard drive, and 1 GB of RAM.
www.dell.com