Businesses are increasingly aware of the importance of using green office supplies to contribute to a more sustainable world. Many companies are “going green”. There are a myriad of methods to make your office “green”, and you don’t even have to be the boss to put some of them into effect immediately. The green office supplies for your office should be recycled, compostable, biodegradable, non-toxic, certified to be sustainable, or reusable.
No matter how “paperless” we try to be, every office uses some paper, so purchase recycled paper and envelopes, and minimize the printing out of unnecessary documents. Your office paper should be environmentally friendly and recycled, with high post- consumer waste (PCW) contents. This includes copy/laser/fax paper, letterhead and envelopes, planners, calendars, and even flip charts. The manufacturing of recycled paper reduces total energy consumption, net greenhouse emissions, particulate emissions, wastewater, solid waste, and wood use as compared to paper made from 100% virgin forest fiber.
Use refillable pens and pencils rather than disposable ones. Use Ink jet (or bubble jet) printers because they use much less energy than laser printers. Although they are slower and don’t print as high quality as laser printers, they are cheaper and cut the energy used by 75-90%. Also use recycled printer cartridges, or cartridges that can be refilled, saving you money and reusing cartridges instead of making waste.
Use biodegradable and non-toxic soaps and cleaners combined with recycled paper towels or cloth towels. Offices use millions of tons of cleaning products yearly which contain toxic chemicals that find their way into our rivers and streams. Cleaning products also represent 10 percent of the poisonings reported to Poison Centers nationally. Even the packaging of cleaning products has environmental impacts. Plastic packaging, non-refillable or un-recyclable containers are filling up our landfills. Buy office supplies in bulk so that shipping and packaging waste are reduced, and reuse the shipping boxes if at all possible.
You can find more Green Office Supplies at Greenlinepaper.com where we try to be as environmentally friendly as possible. They ship by reusing cartons and they are packed in recyclable paper or biodegradable “peanuts.” No polystyrene foam or plastics are used. Your green office supplies will be delivered to you in an environmentally friendly way!
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