The Paperless Office - Week 5

So far I've recycled or found new homes for:

1. Magazines
2. Old paperwork from the bookshelves and filing cabinet
3. Cardboard boxes
4. Lever arch files & ringbinders

That has resulted in 48.661kg of recycled paper and card.  My target is 58,823.5 and I have 8 weeks to go.  It feels like going on a diet. A slow but encouraging start, (that was 8 kilos).  Then came break through on week two and three with all that old paperwork and cardboard.

Week four was more about tidying up, but over the next 8 weeks I hope to make my way towards the last 10 and a bit kilos.

Today, I'm going to tackle my desk and notice board, and I hope that will take care of the 'and a bit'.

My desk is sadly often a bit of a dumping ground.  But here goes...

Do I go for the easy bits first or the hard bits? Easy bits, I think!

1. Stuff to put away or give away...

2 new copies of my book, wrapped in reused magazine wrappers and ready to give to eager purchasers, need to go back in to the box of books in my cupboard.
1 tatty copy of my book, which I'm forever referring to for various reasons, goes on the bookshelf.
2 copies of Clean Slate Magazine, which I want to keep, on the bookshelf.
2 articles on food waste from the local council magazines torn out and put into the ring-binder for my next book.
2 printer cartridges into the recycling envelope.

2. Deal with post

3. Amalgamate the outstanding items from the various to-do lists!

Into recycling goes:
The rest of the magazines, some post that I've now dealt with, 5 to-do lists (now down to one!) and a 2012 calendar from the notice board.

It's looking better but I'm left with a pile of papers and notes which I will work on later and now the paper's gone I can see all the odds and ends like paper clips, pens, cds and flash drives, so they are going to be sorted out too.

This week I've recycled another 518g of paper and card.  I'm getting nearer that target!

Primary School Visits

I've been asked a number of times if I do talks for primary schools.  The answer is YES!!!

There's lots of great work going on in primary schools and plenty of recycling schemes (look out for more information about these next year).  And there's no doubt that our children are keen to learn how to live sustainable lives.  They are, after all, the ones who are going to have to find new ways to live without fossil fuels, are they not?  So, I guess that's not surprising.

But there seem to be fewer opportunities for the older age group and that's why I set about filling that gap with my book, 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free, and my Dustbin Diet workshop that enables young people to work on their own ideas for sustainable lifestyles.

There's more information on my Dustbin Diet website!

However,  I love to 'talk rubbish' with anyone who will listen, and I've long missed the pleasures of primary school. For several years I ran a French club for 5 to 11 year olds in my village primary school.  Having a degree in Early Years Education, I also have lots of friends who teach in primary schools and so my book has had the benefit of their opinion.

"My year 5 would love this."
"The maths is challenging for them but I've promised we'll have a go at some of it next week.  They are so keen."

It then dawned on me that although the students in my pilot secondary schools enjoyed their course and love the book they produced, they may have been even keener if they had already seen and worked with the book in primary school.

So I've set up some games and resources for Key Stage 2 based on the book and have arranged a package of 30 books and some downloadable information sheets that schools can purchase for £180 including postage.

I will be offering half day morning or afternoon visits to all schools who buy a box of 30 books.  The visit can comprise an assembly for the whole school (venue permitting) together with specific sessions for individual classes and/or eco-teams who may be doing work in conjunction with my book.  I do ask schools to cover my expenses but don't make a charge for the actual sessions.

If you would like to purchase a box of books and / or arrange a visit please email me.

anna@dustbindiet.com

You may like to take a look at my Dustbin Diet blog too where I plan to show off some off the lovely work from both primary and secondary schools.

http://dustbindiet.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/year-5s-enjoying-their-green-curriculum.html

The Paperless Office - Week 4

This week is all about creating space.  Now I've recycled all that paper, various files from my book shelves are now stored in the filing cabinet where they should be and I still have an entire shelf of my filing cabinet empty.  But I have a sofa in my office and that's now piled high with empty lever arch files and ring binders.

So these need to find new homes. There were a few that were old and tatty, so these would be no use for giving away.  But they were perfectly serviceable for holding my company accounts documents, which no-one looks at except me and my accountant.  So I swapped the tatty files with some better ones that were storing past years' accounts.  The better files will be easier to re-home.

Senior Daughter is re-homing 5 of them. Junior Daughter has asked to have some too. I've put a big pile aside to take to a charity shop tomorrow, and the rest are in a bag to be offered to JDs friends at sixth form.  I'm sure they will have no problem finding a new home there.

Total paper recycling contribution - a mere 66g of paper inserts from the files.  But space gained - priceless!

Wonderful Wind Power

Yikes, it's been cold today.   But I still managed to get my laundry dry for free, thanks to the wonderful power of wind.

From 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free.  Check out the savings this can bring!

I couldn't resist making use of the bright sunshine beaming down on my solar panels and so I put on a load of washing at around 10.30 this morning.  I took a short break from work late morning to make a cup of tea and while the kettle was boiling I nipped outside to hang the washing on the line.  It was cold, but even so, I could feel a pleasant warming of the sun on my back as I pegged everything out to make use of this perfect wash day combination of wind and sunshine.

This was particularly appreciated, not only for the sheer pleasure of enjoying a few moments of autumn sunshine, but all the more so, to think that Junior Daughter might also be benefitting from its gentle caress as she treks in the Brecon Beacons for her Silver Duke of Edinburgh challenge. Each Duke of Edinburgh challenge she's done so far has been non-stop rain.  Fingers crossed this lovely weather holds for a couple more days!

The Paperless Office - Week 3

Another 15,523g of old bills, questionnaires from data surveys and some old notebooks gets added to last week's total.

Already well over half way there, we are on to step three.  After all that paper last week, I thought I'd go for something quick and easy this week.

Boxes

How many boxes is your office home to right now?  When you buy computer equipment, it comes with a guarantee.  That guarantee often specifies that you have to keep the box, because you need to return the product in its original packaging if anything goes wrong.

Those guarantees are often only for a year, yet I find the boxes hang around long after that.  Besides, I can't remember ever actually having to use any of these boxes as 'original packaging'.  So, I've decided it is time they went.

My local council collect cardboard in the kerbside collections.  You do need to flatten the cardboard, and sometimes they need to be broken up to fit into the recycling boxes. If the boxes are very large, then it is sometimes easier to take it to a recycling centre, if you are passing.

I've recycled the cardboard box from a laptop which had an inner cardboard box too.  Out went the warranty booklet and various other leaflets, and now the recovery disks and the user manual (kept even though it is unopened!) are now taking up much less space on my bookshelf.  A large box from a printer, plus the box from my Kindle have gone to a recycling bank I was passing and that has freed up a good bit of space!

Then I went through the boxes of software which were taking up half a shelf.  First, I recycled two cardboard boxes from some software I no longer use along with the user guides.  I've sent the CDs for recycling too.  There's a collection bank for media in a car park in my nearest town.

Then I looked at the boxes for the software I do use.  A lot of software comes in a large box with an inner that houses a small plastic case or even just a CD.  I checked to make sure the product keys were on this inner packaging or on the discs themselves.  And that means I can recycle the large cardboard outers.  The software now takes up a lot less room.

The over packaging typical of software products.

Add to that, the cardboard document wallet beyond repair and it all weighs in at 10,669g.

My total for three weeks is 48.001kg

The Paperless Office - Week 2

On to the next step...

Week 2.  Go through the filing cabinet and bookshelves and extract all those files you no longer need but still have because they contain confidential or sensitive information or have simply been kept for nostalgic reasons.  Set up your shredder and get shredding.

If you don't have a shredder, then you could try to borrow one from a friend, from work or perhaps  from a local share club such as http://www.ecomodo.com or http://www.streetbank.com/splash.

Shredded paper can be recycled.  However, some councils don't accept shredded paper in the kerbside recycling collections.  This can be for a number of reasons:

• The shredded paper can be problematic for MRFs (Materials Recovery Facilities).  The machinery is designed to recognise and sort different types of paper and card.  But small scraps and shredded paper can be hard to distinguish.  Shredded paper can also jam up the machinery.
• Shredded paper can be easily wind blown and therefore cause litter in the streets.
• Each time paper is recycled the fibres get shorter and eventually become too short to knit together.  Shredding paper is said to shorten the fibres which means it can only make lower grade paper products.

Other councils can accept small amounts.  It is helpful to wrap your shredded paper in a piece of newspaper to stop it blowing away.  Small quantities of shredded paper can be sealed inside envelopes. Wrapping the paper in plastic bags is far from ideal as the plastic bags need to be split open and again this can cause litter.

When I was out with my local collection team last year, we came across a back bin bag, which we could see had some shredded paper coming out of the top.  However, it was impossible to tell whether it was entirely full of shredded paper or not, without splitting it open in the street.  Even though my local council do accept shredded paper, the policy is not to open a black sack in the street because of the likelihood of causing litter, as shredded paper and other materials are likely to blow away.  The team seemed reluctant, but they had limited time, and had to decide to leave it behind for the landfill collection.  I asked what could have been done.  They suggested putting the shredded paper directly into the recycling boxes with a lid, or labelling the bag.

What to shred.
Unless your document is a confidential report, you don't need to shred the whole thing.  Separating and shredding just the bits that are confidential will save time and effort.  It is also easier to manage paper that hasn't been shredded.

What if you can't recycle your shredded paper?
Shredded paper is good for the compost.  That's where I usually put my regular small amounts.
It can also be used for animal bedding.  There are more ways to use your shredded paper on the My Zero Waste Blog.

From 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free

Onto the task...

I've pulled out a pile of old files, including

• Minutes of Parish Council Meetings. - these don't need shredding as they are public documents, so they are going straight in the recycling bin as they are.
• Customer's data from past studies and reports.  I've shredded these as I can't judge whether the information is still sensitive.
• Very old bank statements.  I've cut off the personal information from the top and shredded it.  The rest went into the recycling unshredded.
• Old company accounts.  HMRC recommend you keep accounts information for a minimum of six years.  Some information, such as dividend vouchers and bank interest certificates have to be kept for longer.  Documents like public liability insurance certificates have to be kept much longer and it can be up to 40 years in some cases.  I've decided to keep my company accounts for six years, which means I'll be recycling anything that relates to years prior to 2007.  Most of this will be shredded.
• Various extracts from novels and short stories from the days when I used to edit on paper. These days I rarely need to print anything in order to edit it, as the screen quality is good enough to make it easy on the eye and editing on screen gives an array of useful editing tools, such as the ability to track changes, highlight text, add comments etc.  None of this needs to be shredded, so it is going straight in the recycling box.
• Presentations and course notes from my M.A. and various other writing courses - interesting, but I have no need to keep them!  Straight into the recycling box too.

The total weight of this paper is 12,966g, so far.  And there's more to go.

I have minimised what actually needs to be shredded, in order to preserve as much value from my paper as possible.  I've gained lots of shelf space and have a pile of files to put away for future use or give to my daughters and their friends for their school work.

In two weeks I've recycled just over 21 kilos of paper. That means I'm more than a third of my way to my target of one tree!

By the way, next week's task will be a lot easier :)

The Paperless Office

My office is a sea of paperwork going back 20 years.

I'm aiming to reduce the amount of paper I'm storing by around 75% before the end of the year.  Want to join me?  The plan is to part with all that old paper work you don't need and get it into your recycling bin.  Making paper out of recycled paper uses 45% less energy than making it from the virgin wood pulp.  Recycling one tonne of paper saves around 17 trees.  As paper is pretty heavy, I reckon I can save at least one tree all on my own.

I'm going to weigh the paper I recycle, because I do crazy things like that, so I'll let you know if I've saved a tree by Christmas!

Over the coming weeks I'll post my 12 steps to reducing your paper mountain by 75%


Are you ready... here's a nice easy one to get you started!

Week 1.  Pull out all your old magazines.  You can either give these away or put them in your recycling box/bank.  Every magazine you recycle, makes about enough carbon saving to watch the next six episodes of Downton Abbey!

This week I've recycled:

12 x Writer magazines
4 parenting magazines
4 copies of Woman and Home
3 travel magazines
2 copies of Golfer magazine
2 copies of  RSPB's Birds
1 copy of Good Housekeeping
1 weekend Observer magazine
1 Guardian weekly guide
1 copy of Time magazine (from 1996!)
1 copy of l'Equipe
1 copy of Marie Claire
1 brochure from Oxford University's Continuing Education Department

Yes, I'm a bit of a magazine hoarder, I confess, but I'm sure this is not unusual.  These magazines have a combined weight of 8843 grammes.

If I really want to save a tree by Christmas, then I'd actually need to recycle 58,823.5 grammes in total.  So I've still got just under 50kg to go.  Hmm!  I wonder..?

For next week, you'll need a shredder.  If you don't have one, then maybe you can borrow one from a friend or from work.