How to Green Up Your Office

A lot of people are going green these days, not because it's the trendy thing to do, it's what many say we should be doing. I'm going more green around my house, but now here are some ways we can go green at the office and it can start with your coffee.

Coffee Cups - Replace Styrofoam cups with reusable mugs. If just 15 people switched their own mug for the average three disposable cups they use in one day, it would save over 11 thousand cups from being bought and thrown away. It would not only save money, it would save space in our landfills. Speaking of coffee, organically grown, shade grown or fair trade coffee. Fair trade coffee is purchased from farmers who are paid a liveable wage for themselves and their employees. Shade grown coffee is grown under the canopy, so no rainforests were cut down to make room for coffee plants and organic coffee is grown without toxic pesticides that are harmful to humans and the Earth.

Eco-Friendly Office Supplies - Using recycled paper for printing (and print only when you must) plus refillable ink and toner cartridges can save resources and money. Recycled paper uses post-consumer waste and saves trees because it takes a lot of trees and energy to make fresh paper. A lot of retailers are now offering green options for office supplies that are made from reclaimed materials. Those also take less energy and resources to make.

Eco-Friendly Cleaning Supplies - Whether it's up to the employees to keep their spaces clean, or you have a team come in and do it, try and use green cleaning products wherever possible. There are a lot of affordable and eco-friendly cleaning products on the market now. Fairview Gardens, the Good Earth Food Coop, Coborn's, Cashwise, Byerly's and even major retailers like Target and Walmart offer green cleaning options. I'm partial to Watkins, Mrs. Meyers and Seventh Generation.

Set Up Office Recycling - Set up separate bins for paper in the copy room or in shared offices as well as plastics, metal, ink cartridge, cardboard and aluminum recycling in the lunch room. We here at Townsquare Media have recycling bins all over the place. Not only are recycling bins everywhere you look, they're always filling up because we use them, so when you set up bins in your office, make sure they're put to use.

Have gone green at home or at work? Tell us how! If you haven't, this list is just a small jumping off point. You can learn more about going green at the office by clicking HERE.