Greening the Office

Main Ceremonial House

Polyensiane Resort,

Walt Disney World 2008

So Hines (the owners of the building my office is in) have decided to go green. Yeah!

The good thing about this is that they are recycling two things that have been hard for me to get ride of at home ... aluminum cans and plastic bottles. While that is good for me and my house, I am still wondering what that helps here at the office. Why? Because there are not a lot of bottles of water and canned drinks floating around this place. Every floor has a fountain drink machine. In our firm you can find almost any kind of soda you could imagine. That means most thinking people don't bother with bring canned drinks from home. There is no need for bottled water.

Another recent change has been going from plastic forks, knives and spoons to compostable ones. That's a great step in the right direction. But so far, I have not seen a compost bin anywhere. I don't think it helps to have compostable cutlery if it is just going to end up in a plastic trash bag in a landfill.

I am really starting to think that there is some kind tax break for offering these things. Here are some green ideas, that might actually be useful...

1) have reusable glasses and mugs available in the coffee bars.
2) have a compost bin in the lunch room.
3) turn up the A/C we won't need to wear jackets and sweaters in July.