A cool book recently crossed my desk, “True Green @ Work: 100 way you can make the environment your business.” (National Geographic Books, $19.95). It outlines in quick tidbits of information simple steps you can take as an employee or employer to help the environment. Here are a few:
1. Turn off your computer. That box of information sucks up nearly 1,000 kilowatts of electricity, which results in more than two tons of carbon emissions each year if left to hum in the dark all night. If you shut down every night before you head for home, you can cut that down to less than 250 kilowatts each year.
2. Get a plant. An indoor plant works like a natural air filter. They absorb pollutants and computer radiation and turn all that carbon dioxide you breath out in the form of hot air back into sweet oxygen. They also cool the air through a process called transpiration and can possibly protect you from germs. Research suggests that a plant can reduce incidences of fatigue, coughs, sore throats and other cold-related illnesses. And if that was not enough, plants are noted as having a stress-reducing effect. So buy a fern and relax.
3. Bring your own cup. Stop using the company’s Styrofoam cups and bring your own coffee mug. It is not only environment, but gives you the opportunity to show off your personality a little. Using your own mug can reduce your coffee-related waste 30 times over what you’d toss using paper products, which translates to 60 times less air pollution.
- Lindsey
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 am
Here is another way to go green and stop the unsolicited delivery of telephone books. Not sure if you know about this site or ways to stop the nonsense of delivering 540 million books per year!!
Consumers can “opt out” of receiving telephone books at www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. This organization will contact the publishers and inform them to stop delivering books. This is a free service for consumers. www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is working with state and local governments on ordinances concerning the delivery of unsolicited telephone books.
www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is not against the telephone books but against the delivery of 4 to 5 pounds of paper on people’s door step 5 to 6 times per year and being told it is our responsibility to recycle something we did not ask for. If we need a book we will call. Otherwise I “opt out” from receiving it. Here are phone numbers of the publishers if you would like to call them instead: The directory publishers listed make it possible for you to stop receiving their books, but they don’t make it easy. None of the menu options includes “opting-out”. Follow the roadmap and you should get to a customer service representative who can help you.
— ATT/ Yellow Pages: 1-800-479-2977
— Verizon: 800-555-4833, press 4, then 5, then 2
— DEX: 1-877-243-8339, press 2
— Yellow Book: 1-800-929-3556, press 2
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 am
That is great information. I get so tired of getting phone books. Seems like everyone has a phone book and if you live in the burbs you get the OKC phone bookS, plus your local burb book. And if you live in the sticks you get the OKC bookS, plus the nearest burb book, plus your local sticks book. That is something in the ballpark of 4 or more phone books. And who actually uses those anyway? Isn’t that what the Internet is for?
- Lindsey