Work wants eco-friendly tips from me....ummm...help!

[Lmccrean]

The company is large and people dont even clean up after themselves, use the soft drink cans bins for all rubbish, 1/4 full dishwashers are put on (by housekeepers-wouldnt catch the majority of the staff even loading them...grrrr) But I complained we werent eco enough and now they want me to tell them what we could do better?! There is the obvious stuff, like alternatives to disposable plastic cups for the water dispensers (yes, I know water dispensers arent good, but the tap water is gross)

So....any ideas that would be easy to implement, or do you know of any companies that I could put my company in touch with to help them?

how about some sort of recycling scheme there.
Box for paper, one for cans etc??
We had it in my previous company, and it actually worked as well!!

Also, youve mentioned you have a load of cups from the water cooler, why not get rid of the cups, and make the workers use their own glass??

fairtrade office coffee/tea
recycle office equipmt- ink cartridges/computers etc
don't leave computers on standby overnight
carshare to work scheme
using recylced stationery
fit filter on tap?

Recylcling paper.
Switching lights off when leaving the room empty.
Using Ecover washing up liquid, similar for loo roll, etc.
Fairtrade tea, coffee, orange juice.
Long life light bulbs that don't emit more light than is actually needed.
Turn the thermostat down on the heater if it's too high.
Put fewer people in charge of the dishwasher, etc and put targets in their job description so that they understand what the co is trying to do and that they are responsible for part of it.
Share car travel whenever possible.
Make more use of public transport and encourage this to be the preferred mode of transport.
Have a pool of bicycles for use when staff go to town in their lunch time or go for a cycle ride at lunch time.
Put one person in charge of getting the local recycling place to come once a week and take away cardboard, plastics etc.
Get in touch with the local recycling place that takes unwanted office desks and chairs and sells them to the public.

Must go, lunch is ready. (Soup - courtesy of the kids!) HTH and well done and good luck!

How do the filters work?

We just did a fairtrade tea and coffee blind tasting test last friday, and 97% of employees who took part preferred the fairtrade!

Carshare is a great idea! Never thought of it!

We shred all paper and as far as I know, its recycled, as well as boxes.

Will find out about stationery!

We have our own cups, in theroy, you know those thermal ones? Put my name on mine and havenet seen it since I put it in the dishwasher, but will definately be asking for water bottles or similar.

This is great ladies! Really appreciate it :)

seem them fitted but don't know how - get local plumber in for advice I guess..
it's great that yr company asked you, at least they're showing willing!

Soup is too cold. Just re-heating it.

Buy a water jug for each room (mine is a Kenwood) and a pack of water filters to go in it. It can be filled from the tap and it tastes (to me, anyway) better than it is when straight from the tap. The filter lasts our family a month or so but I imagine about a week or less in an office with 6 or so people.

How about local, organic milk to go in the tea and coffee? Maybe fairtrade sugar, too?

How about a "Free to a good home" or "Almost free - just donate £X to named charity" noticeboard. That way people can recycle their not needed computer printer from home, single bed, doubled up Christmas / wedding presents, etc.

How about a "Lifts offered / lifts wanted" noticeboard?

Along the same lines, have a "I've got a large box to go to named office / village / town - anyone going there between now and next (deadline) date?" noticeboard. Saves on postage.

At Christmas time, how about each person who wants to join in, paying a pound and then writing their name on a single large office Christmas card? The cost of the card comes out of the pot and the rest goes to charity.

Alternatively, dh and I did a Oxfam tree donation and we had an Oxfam card on my desk which said (more or less) "IvortheEngine and dh have donated 50 trees which will be planted in Africa in lieu of Christmas cards to their work colleagues. Merry Christmas"

we have an intranet with a virtual noticeboard instead of using paper on real noticeboards!

Theres a few hundred people here, so would need quite a few filter jugs, but definately a great idea...as is the milk and sugar idea!

Ill be sure to mention you all in my email to them :)

Now, any tips on actually getting people to use the recycling bins properly? Was thinking if there was one set of bins per team (theres maybe 50 + teams in the company - each with 10-15 people in them) that would make it easier, and whichever team sorts their rubbish the best each week gets a prize ( a box of fairtrade chocolates? ;) ) We are very competitive :)

Why not do a day where your colleagues pay £1.00 to wear relaxed clothes, then use that money to buy the jugs.

I liked the idea of a prize but then had second thoughts on whether any practical jokers would sabotage another team's recycling bin! If they are located within the team's office and not in a general area then I'm sure that the box of choccies idea would be great. If it's too small for the whole team to share, then they could take it in turns to win one each.

We had a challenge in work recently but it ended with a damp squib i.e. we found out which team was the winner but the organiser said they'd send them an orange, or something! A tip there of how not to do it - not that you would!

I'm glad you have an intranet. Makes life so much easier. Can you get recognition from an ecological type organisation if the co does well? They might like to aim for that. Maybe you could have a meeting with someone from an organisation and they will give you tips or a pack already prepared for companies?

Look into water usage, electricity usage, dual flush toilets, eco friendly hand dryers in the loos, lights which go on and off automatically in the loos, etc.