Office Supplies Can Be Eco-friendly!
Offices are notorious for being wasteful and anything but eco-friendly. From running the lights all night or leaving computers running 24/7 to using hundreds of plastic cups at the water cooler, offices can be wasteful places. That makes them ideal for making small changes that can have a big impact.
From the boardroom to the cloakroom, it is possible to deliver an eco-friendly office by making some informed decisions about the products you buy. With some well-chosen eco-friendly office supplies and some environmentally friendly office practices, it is entirely possible to fundamentally change the environmental impact of your office with minimal adjustments.
Done right, it takes less effort than greenwashing through creative PR, and it will have a genuine benefit to the planet!
Here are some simple ideas for eco-friendly office supplies that will make a huge difference to the environmental impact your workplace makes.
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Recycled Office Products
The range and quality of recycled stationery and office products has improved hugely over the past few years. The days of recycled products being a poor imitation of new products are long gone. If it didn’t say ‘Recycled’ on the packaging, you would likely never know.
Recycled paper, pens, toner, envelopes and even office furniture is now manufactured to such a high standard that you won’t even notice it is recycled.
Recycling Office Products
The genius of recycled stationery is that it can be recycled all over again. Recycling has advanced alongside recycled products to deliver a credible alternative to landfill. Offices generate lots of waste and reducing that waste is key to delivering an eco-friendly office.
It is possible to recycle almost everything from paper to ballpoint pens, used coffee grounds to empty printer toner. Some stationery suppliers will even collect your used items when they deliver your new, meaning maximum impact with minimum effort.
Plastic Alternatives for Eco-friendly Office Supplies
We are all fully aware of the environmental cost of using plastics and the need to reduce reliance on plastic and oil-based products. Again, the stationery industry is way ahead of us.
You can now buy high quality stationery that uses either recycled plastic or replaces plastic altogether. From cork desk accessories to water in a can, there are viable alternatives to the most eco-unfriendly products that deliver comparable performance and convenience for much less waste.
Water in a can is a great example of thinking outside the box. Cans are heavier to transport and need to be recycled themselves but offer better green credentials than plastic. While mining bauxite for aluminium is not much better for the planet than oil refining for plastic, aluminium can at least be recycled back into its original state. Plastic cannot.
Cans are no substitute for reusable containers. However, they do offer a middle ground for changing behaviours from convenience to sustainability, and are proving exceptionally popular!
Green Cleaning
Chemical use is another area where you can use environmentally friendly office practices without compromising on quality or effectiveness. There is a fantastic selection of chemical alternative products on the market that deliver the same cleaning power of chemicals with a far lower environmental impact.
Related: Are you making these 3 natural cleaning mistakes?
Products such as multipurpose cleaners, descalers, washroom cleaners and even floor cleaners can deliver the same cleaning power as chemical products while using few or no harmful chemicals.
Related: Totally non-toxic cleaning!
The Eco-Friendly Office
It is entirely possible to create an eco-friendly office with very little compromise or effort. Small changes from the bottom to the very top of the organisation can make a huge difference to how much waste we produce.
Those small changes, multiplied millions of times in every office in the world could just help tip the scales in the direction we need to maintain a healthy planet. All without compromising productivity or convenience. That has to be worth trying doesn’t it?
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Warm regards,
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