- Turn off the lights. Remember to shut off the switch on your way out of the office each and every time when leaving the room.
- Remove yourself from bulk, business mailing, (aka junk mail), lists but before tossing out unwanted junk mail, call the company and ask that your name be removed from its mailing list. Have contacts e-mail you instead. Surveys indicate that 50 percent of the mailings are discarded and never opened.
- Make your print toner cartridges last longer. If you're printing rough drafts or documents for internal purposes, change the printer's settings to economy mode and avoid printing in color if possible. Economy mode uses up to 50 percent less toner and prints twice as many pages as higher quality settings. Printing on both sides slashes the number of sheets used by 50 percent.
- Recycle paper, plastics, toner cartridges, used electronics, batteries, DVDs, CDs, and other reusable materials. If it tears, it can be recycled: from magazines and manila folders to plain paper and post-it notes. Manufacturing recycled paper generates 74 percent less air pollution than creating paper from scratch and saves trees, water, and energy.
- Buy 100 percent recycled paper when you're buying paper for the office, make sure it's 100 percent recycled and, ideally, non-chlorinated. The chlorine used for bleaching is one of the biggest polluters in the paper-making process.
- Curb the consumption of phantom electricity. Many appliances still use energy even when they're turned off. Items left plugged into the wall, such as a mobile phone charger or laptop adapter, can leak more than 20 watts of power. Plug office equipment into a power strip instead and turn it off at night and on weekends.
This information was prepared by the Administration and Finance Division.