Eco Alley
Living Green with Connie Pumphrey
What would Dilbert do?
Remaining civil with our peer groups is a daunting task. I am thinking of my co-workers now, that group of people we see daily and with whom we MUST interact.
It was important to me that our offices become environmentally friendly, and I knew that handling it correctly was a key component. It was my effort. I owned it, and I would be responsible for its success.
I should not have begun the process by trying to eliminate space heaters—women are serious about them. Admittedly, I am rarely cold but some of the offices I entered were like saunas and my co-workers meant to keep it that way.
We then ramped up recycling efforts to comply with Montgomery County’s 50 percent guidelines. Each desk was provided with a recycle bin and they were encouraged to tattle when housekeeping did not separate trash & recycling. It is going well.
I hired two people to scan documents so all our history is stored and new projects would (hopefully) be paperless. Old habits die hard but we’re getting better at it.
We ask each employee to power down all their equipment every night—marginally successful.
We celebrated Earth Day 2009 by giving out reusable bags and Earth Day 2010 by eliminating paper and plastic cups/glasses and buying glassware (and only a few leave their cups/glasses in the sink.)
We installed motion detector lighting in common areas. It’s kind of weird to have lights come on as we pass by but OK.
And finally, when we leased a new copier last week, it was programmed to default to double sided copying.
Baby steps by some standards, but we’re headed in the right direction.
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