Home Office Answers

Did you catch Ed on Larry King last night?  He only got a few minutes of air time at the end of the show.

He suggested that we each try to do the small things to save the environment and we will save some money along the way.

He brought a “real” perspective to his ideas by readily admitting most of us average folks can’t run out and buy a hybrid because the gas price went up.

Make a small adjustment today to save a little energy.  Walk to the store if you can.  Turn off you electronics that are using phantom power, turn up the thermostat during the day.  Find a little way to save energy and cash and try making it a habit.  I’m with ED one small change at a time is the only approach most of us can take.

Ed also had some really cool looking “plastic grass”  someday maybe I can afford that.

I have seen this picture all over the net and TV with all kinds of captions and I really think the obvious needs to be stated.

Obama may enjoy bike riding, he may be participating in some family time, he may just be trying to relax. All great reasons to ride a bike.

Obama is most certainly NOT avoiding the gas pump.

He jets all over the country day in and day out and if I remember he jetted on out of the country too for a little R&R not that long ago.

Once he gets to his destination by air he then drives a vehicle all over a state. I don’t know the facts but I am guessing there are several other cars that make the same trect to keep him up to date on “things.”

Obama is not unique in his use of fuel from any other politician or many of millions of business people in this country, so please spare me by turning a weekend bike ride into a fuel saving political ad.

I would like to see any politician make a REAL commitment to minimal fuel usage.

How about both candidates agreeing today, no more traveling to campaign. Make all your statements right from your home. Think how much fuel and money that would save the hard working American people that keep donating their money to these campaigns.

Photo via AP

If you have been reading my blog for any amount of time, by now, you know eliminating the use of plastic bags is one of my personal priorities.

Wal-Mart recently reviewed their policy on offering $1.00 reusable bags in their stores.
They are rightfully touting the impact they are having, but it could be SO MUCH MORE.
(A Snippet of the release is below)

I truly don’t understand why a company as big as Wal-Mart wants to charge for reusable bags.
The average customer is so much more likely to try using a reusable bag if it doesn’t cost extra.

Why don’t they just print Wal-Mart on the bag and chalk it up to advertising expense.

Think how many MORE shoppers would use and hopefully bring back a reusable bag if it was free. 

I think they could start today and adopt a policy that a year from now only reusable bags will be used in their stores.  During this year the bags are free and next year you have to pay the $1.00 if you don’t have your bag to use or bring it in for exchange if it is worn out.

Maybe we should email Wal-Mart and suggest they make the bags FREE for 1 year.

Do you think this is a good idea or have other thoughts on ways large retailers can help solve the plastic bag issue?

How about it Wal-Mart?? 

SNIPPET
Bag Facts

In October 2007, we began selling reusable bags in all of our Wal-Mart discount stores, Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets for $1

each. Selling reusable bags is good for our business because it reduces the number of plastic bags we need to produce. More importantly,

it benefits our customers. Not only can we pass these savings along to our customers, but by using a reusable bag, our customers can

reduce the amount of waste that they generate.

• Our initial estimates show that each reusable bag will eliminate the need for at least 150 plastic disposable bags over its lifetime. We

have sold enough bags to eliminate the need for at least 800 million disposable bags.

• Each of the black reusable bags are made with recycled polyethylene terephthalate (RPET) plastic generated from approximately four

soda or water bottles.

• About the size of a regular paper bag, the reusable bags are expected to hold approximately the same weight as two to three regular,

disposable plastic bags.

• When the bag wears out, customers can return it to their local Wal-Mart store for recycling. We will combine the worn bags with the rest

of the used plastic generated by our stores into our super sandwich balers, where it will be bundled and sent to a certified recycler for

processing. So far, we estimate that we’ve diverted more than 97 million pounds of plastic from landfills.

Would you like to have your store receipts stored electronically? You may soon have the chance to do that without ever holding, or scanning a printed receipt. A new option for eliminating receipts at the checkout counters of major retailers may be around the corner.

An on-line service that will let consumers receive digital receipts after a counter purchase at big box stores, such as Best Buy and Target, is set to launch May 16.

AllEtronic is an add-in for digital cash registers running popular point of purchase applications. When it recognizes a customer as a sale is rung up, allEtronic blocks the receipt-printing process, triggering details to be sent to its servers instead.

As a consumer you can visit allEtronic’s Web site to view and export receipts to your personal accounting software. You can sign up for an count now, but the service is not active until later this week.

First you have to enter the first six and last four digits of a credit card number when you sign up for the program.

This may be a little inconvenient for people like me that use several credit cards to keep expenses separate.

Participating retailers will likely display an allEtronic decal near the usual lineup of credit card logos. Some shops may add allEtronic kiosks or tout the service in their TV commercials.

Retailers that still use paper receipts for internal records could continue to do so, but without printing a customer copy.

The company is seeking a stamp of approval from Trustwave, which would mark allEtronic as a secure service for storing partial credit card numbers.

AllEtronic publicizes its product as green for helping to save the trees felled for some 600,000 tons of thermal receipt paper used by stores each year. It takes 15 trees, 19,000 gallons of water, and 390 gallons of oil to make a ton of paper, according to the company, which is based in Fullerton, Calif.

I am all eliminating the paper printed receipts. Overall it should save me time. And save paper. I also think it may help me to be more organized. One draw back may be a mis-rung item at the checkout, but I am willing to pay extra attention as the items are rung up so I don’t have to deal with all the little tiny receipts.

Do you think this idea will catch on?

How confusing can going green be?

When I first decided to try and make a small difference in my little corner of the world
(my home office) I was excited about all the possibilities of how I could go green.

It seemed like such as easy thing to me, go green in my home office, be eco friendly, help the environment.

Boy was I wrong, or was I?

It seems these days everyone is going green and has advice on how to do it correctly.

I am really bothered by the condemning approach many of the so called experts are taking to every action.

Example, if I am using reusable bags instead of a bazillion plastic bags at the store that’s not good enough, oh no now I have to make sure my reusable bag is made of organic cotton. And the condemning doesn’t stop there; I am supposed to check out what kind of processing plant the maker of the organic bag has. Do they use green energy?

PLEASE give me a break!

I think I am a reasonable woman and I want to make reasonable efforts to make my home office green. The way I see it, using a reusable bag over and over again is better for the environment than a one use plastic bag even if it’s not the PERFECT solution.

I really worry that this all or nothing approach is going to scare off the average person from making any change at all. And don’t forget, it us average folk who really hold the power to make a real difference, there are only a few AL Gore’s in the world.

If you want common sense changes to help your home office go green subscribe to my RSS feed, and by all means share your tips here too. I’m going to do my best to provide a voice of reason and keep posting easy to implement tips here every week.

Today’s Tip - Take back your power, use any reusable bag you choose 

Going green in your home office is a step by step program. I try new ideas all the time to see what works for me.

Printing less and using less paper is a win-win for me. My home office goes green and I stay more organized.
After trying to reduce your home office use of paper as much as possible, it’s still unavoidable that you’ll need paper and printing supplies.

Now it’s time to make sure you are using sustainable paper options

Luckily there are many green paper options available. Your local office or stationery store probably carries recycled paper. I think it’s fun to look around at the different options recycled paper now comes in. There’s really no excuse for using virgin paper when there are so many tree-friendly types available. You can order bulk supplies online from many retailers as well.

My favorite source for everything a green home office might need is The Green Office. In addition to extensive paper choices, they offer all kinds of green office products from furniture to phones to ink.

Take a look at the Green Office site to see what you might need. As fun as shopping at the local retailer is, saving my time and my gas by shopping on-line is the way I choose to go.

Always make sure you really need paper, or printing supplies before you order them. Try to order at least a few months supply at a time to save on packaging and shipping.

Junk mail is a real issue irritation for me.

There are ways to try to reduce junk mail. but they take time, and lots of it.
So while you are waiting for your www.greendimes.com service to reduce your junk mail, why not try and find ways to use all that paper instead of throwing it into the landfill.

I shred most of my junk mail and save it for packing items that have to be shipped.

I dream about using the shreds to make my own beautiful homemade paper, but doubt I’ll ever take the time to do that.
If you do make your own paper I would love to hear and learn about it.

This article on using the paper to mulch is very interesting. Frugality in Practice: Turn Your Junk Mail into Garden Mulch

If you have used paper for mulching or have another idea on how to use junk mail please share it.

  When I was getting my information for taxes together, I realized I needed a copy of a closing statement from a real estate transaction that had occurred during the year.  I contacted the realtor that handled the transaction and asked if I could get an electronic copy.  They said they could not send it electronically for security reasons but they could overnight it to me.  I thought that was a prosperous waste of money and told them I would pick it up when I would be near their office on other business.  Now I was able to do that because they are only about 15 miles away and I did have to meet someone near there for other business.  If I had been across the country or even across the state they would have overnighted the papers to me.  I started thinking about the tremendous amount of wasted resources we spend everyday on this ridiculous overnight and shipped paperwork. 

Until today I didn’t have a real solution to offer then I ran across this press release.

(Accellion press release snippet) Accellion, Inc. (http://www.accellion.com/) has introduced a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional shipping. The Accellion Green Digital Logistics Solution enables corporations to eliminate the traditional costs, time delays, security issues, and environmental concerns associated with physical delivery. Accellion Green provides corporate users with digital delivery at digital speeds, reduced costs and reduced CO2 emissions. 

“If you can make it digital, you can ship it via Accellion Green,” said Yorgen Edholm, president and CEO of Accellion.(end)

I checked out their web site and this service looks like an excellent choice for many industries like financial intuitions, health care, insurance and really any company that now uses a traditional courier for papers. Digital shipping is good for the bottom line and good for the environment.

I am definitely keeping this web site bookmarked, the next time I need paperwork I will have a resource to recommend.

If you try their service please tell me what you think?

  Okay, I admit it I was “hooked” on plastic bottled water.  I bought into the advertising insinuations that bottled water is tastier and healthier.  Plus, it just seemed cooler to drink water from the mountain stream or some other auspicious place. 

It’s ironic that the millions of plastic bottles used for water are actually destroying the very mountain stream they claim to use.

Did you know making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water required the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil in 2006, enough fuel for more than 1 million United States cars for a year, and generated more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide?

Worldwide, 2.7 million tons of plastic are used each year to make water bottles, and in the United States, less than 1 out of 5 of these bottles are recycled.

The rest find their way into landfills and just sit there for decades to come.

Why should we waste precious oil and energy and create pollution for a plastic bottle?

Besides wasting our precious resources bottled water is plain expensive.

Do you know how much cold cash do you spend on bottled water? If you drink eight glasses a day from plastic bottled water, you could spend up to $1,400 dollars a year! Bottled water can cost as much as $10 per gallon compared to less than a penny per gallon for tap water.

I can think of a lot better ways to spend $1400.00 than drinking plastic bottled water, how about you?

An easy way to go green at home or at the office, give up the plastic bottled water habit. Save your cash and the environment, use a safe reusable water bottle (I recommend SIGG, or something similar) or the glass in your kitchen cupboard.

For Earth Day here’s an easy to implement tip to get you started saving paper.
Print this page for your receipt.

I think those are the infamous words I read every time I make an on-line purchase.

This used to be my routine, print the receipt page, lay it on my desk, find the receipt about 3 weeks later, while looking for a completely different paper and put it in a file in my desk drawer in case I need it later.

I can honestly say I don’t think I have EVER needed that paper for anything.

Since committing to making my home office green I have started looking for ways NOT to print things.  A receipt from an on-line purchase has turned out to be one the easier things to not print for me. 

Once you have a system in place, saving your on-line receipts in your computer is easy.

Step 1

Find a PDF Printer you like.

Let me explain.

The word printer here is likely to cause confusion.  If you are like me, when you see the word printer you automatically think printing on paper; however when you see “print to PDF” (Portable Document Format) there is no paper or ink involved. 
Printing to PDF is geek speak for saving your document in a PDF format.  I know that sounds complicated, but trust me it is not.  
The best way to understand it is to try it.

Find a PDF Printer you like.

There are plenty of free ones available.

I use Green Print, a couple other popular ones are CutePDF and DoPDF. 

Follow the download and install instructions on the site you have chosen.  Once the software is installed you are ready to start digitally saving your receipts.

When the “print this receipt” box appears, select print like you have done in the past.  When this box pops up select your PDF Printer.

Now click ok. 

You should set up a digital filing system that works best for you and save your receipt in a folder that you will be able to locate easily should you ever need it.

Give this system a try and let me know what you think.