green girl.

it’s no secret at work that i love being green…

i’ve been working at a wonderful office for the last eight months.  but since i started there – i noticed that we plowed through rims of paper in the same fashion as we ingested water.  it was a little alarming.  water is necessary.  exorbitant amounts of paper to be filed in boxes anyway – was not.

so i started gathering all the scrap paper in the office …  documents we’ve used for meetings, drafts, fax transmissions – anything with a blank back portion which we can use again.   i asked my bosses to gather paper they have used and no longer needed. and it has been working beautifully.  first, i started making memo pads from the recycled paper – but since we discovered a nifty way of just e-mailing little notes to one another inter-office, that was obsolete.  so now, i have a drawer in my office just dedicated to all the “recycle office paper”  – to be used for reports that i need on hand during meetings.  or just documents which we must have hard copies of.  so.. with every single document that i print – i’ve started to really consider if i really need it filed in a binder or sitting on my desk.  most of my work is all in my computer… everything is stored in our server … organized well in our directories… a virtual cabinet, if you will. and i prefer it that way.   my boss ( i have two) is also gung-ho on modernizing our entire filing system.  in so much that he wants all pertinent documents scanned and stored in our server – and since we deal with other countries on a daily basis, having documents filed electronically is a must.

anyway, i’m glad that i can at least contribute a little with changing the way our office consumes paper (and plastic).  that was pretty important to me.  our building’s waste management does not  pick-up recyclables, but despite that i’m using a cabinet in our boardroom as a makeshift plastic bottle recycle situation.  we go through water bottles like crazy too…  so seeing that makes me happy. i know i’m nerding out here a little, but its true…

oh, we also have sensors on our lights – so if there is no movement in a particular office for an extended period of time (say, 20 minutes) – the lights shut off automatically … *love* that.  my office gets so much natural light during the warmer seasons that I just have the lights shut off most of the time and use a tiny lamp on my desk for work. my co-workers say that i love to work in the dark. he he. that’s okay though

so,  at home..  i’m similar.

i use rechargeable batteries

use energy efficient light bulbs and turn off all the lights when not needed.

i bring my own shopping bags (when buying food) – i am trying to do that too with other items… so far i get smiles from salespeople when i give them back their huge shopping bag (though pretty) when i have another in my hand. i try to stick to one bag when shopping and just toss everything in there instead of having a bunch from different stores.

i own digital cameras… which do not use film, but i bought a Holga recently which uses 120mm… and although the allure of film photography has been tugging at me a bit, the idea of going through rolls of film is not appealing to me at the moment. so instead i decided to hone my skills at post-processing, and possibly learn to mimic the look of film before i delve into this type of photography.

( i have more i will add a little later)