The habits we cultivate carefully at home often fall by the wayside once we walk out the door. Why is it that we fervently recycle our magazines at home, but toss piles of paper into the trash can at work? Paper waste is one of the biggest environmental concerns for commercial operations. There are a few adjustments that can be made around the office to help offset the environmental impact. Solutions are as simple as using recycled toilet paper and replacing paper towels with linen hire and effectively reduce the amount of paper waste that flows through your office.
Objectives
The first step to any campaign is to evaluate where you are now and set benchmarks to measure your future achievements. You can be creative with your goals, but a good place to start is by measuring how much office paper is sent out as waste every week and trying to cut that in half over the next six months.
Eliminate the Paper
Think about where you can cut paper out of your life and do it. Encourage office memos to circulate via email, store your files online and share files through an office-wide database. Not only is this good for the environment, but it reduces clutter around the office and also makes it easier to keep files and correspondences archived and accessible.
It’s not just letterhead that can be cut out of your office. Think about your bathroom and kitchen and all of the paper used there. Can any of it be replaced by hand dryers or linen? Most likely, your custodial company would offer you a regular linen service for hand and dish towels if you asked: this is a simple switch that can greatly reduce the amount of waste in your office.
Think Before You Print
Setting your printer to print double sided as a default is an easy way to cut paper use in half. You could also set your word processing programs to a default style using a smaller font and wider margins. Even better, fully train your staff in how to use your word processors to share documents and edit drafts on the computer rather than on paper. Make sure that only essential items are printed.
Recycle
In areas that you do require paper products (toilet paper, for example), you can make a big difference on the environment simply by using recycled products. This is an easy switch, that won’t disrupt your operations in the slightest.
In addition to buying recycled products, you can recycle by reusing the paper in your office. Any one sided printouts can be reused in the printer for internal documents. You should also ensure that any paper that has been used on both sides finds its way into the recycling bin and not the trash.
Working with your custodial service company is a great start to finding new ways you can reduce waste around the office. In addition to providing towel hire and recycled products, your cleaning company can help maintain first-class health and safety in the workplace with services like IT cleaning and sanitary disposal units.