When I started at Zone 5 there were four people employed here. These days at any given time there are thirty-something. You can imagine that growing seven fold in a period of ten years required us to make some upgrades, especially when it comes to our impact on landfills. Not recycling at this stage is basically unthinkable. In an average week any office our size uses hundreds of consumables of all varieties. Cans, bottles, paper, all the usual suspects. If you aren’t recycling at work these items are going directly into landfills where they will stay indefinitely.
We used to rent a relatively small dumpster that was emptied once a week. However as time went on we grew, and there was more of everything. More employees, more projects, more deliveries, and as a direct result? More garbage. What became increasingly obvious was that a growing portion of the dumpster content was cardboard, and thus the cardboard dumpster was born. We were able to offset the additional cost of the cardboard dumpster by having our regular dumpster emptied less often and now we were recycling.
Back in the day we drank a lot of soda. One of my first assignments at Zone 5 was to take the deposit cans back. Sounds simple enough right? Picture an entire 10'x12' office filled with soda cans. Even though it was eleven years ago I still remember it was over $40 worth which equates to more than 800 cans and bottles. It took hours and several trips. At the time it was enough money to buy the whole office lunch. This chore was passed from coworker to coworker until eventually no one wanted to do it, at which time we were able to combine our plastic and glass with cardboard for no additional charge.
For a while we rationalized that a large portion of the paper we threw out was made from post-consumer content. That was a good start but there was no reason not to go full circle. One phone call later and sure enough we were able to throw the copier paper in the same dumpster with everything else. They grab it all in one shot and sort it out later.
It really was that simple. There was no special secret or complex formula to follow. The only trick to success is making recycling convenient enough that your coworkers will do their part. Putting an extra bin next to the regular garbage with a recycling logo on the lid seems to have done the trick for us. We also put a bin next to the printer for the paper.
Does the company you work for recycle? For the most part my posts are just a record of what Zone 5 is doing but this is one instance when I would urge you to act. Make sure your employer is recycling. If they aren’t currently doing it ask how you can help. It was shockingly easy to institute and it costs almost nothing.
We recycle lots of other items and we’ll get to them, but next up I’ll show you how to get 85 miles to the gallon in style.
We’ve covered what Zone 5 did to conserve energy in our office. Now let’s review a few simple things we can do for ourselves at home. Saving energy at home should be nearly free to implement while providing immediate savings. We all know to turn the heat down before leaving the house, and to turn the lights off when leaving a room. For me, it’s all about temperature. 
Ever turn your faucet to hot and then burn your hand? If you can scauld yourself with your tap water chances are you could stand to lower your hot water heater’s thermostat. It’s perpetually heating the water day and night. The higher the temp it’s set at the more energy it uses. Lowering it a degree or two will save you money and you’ll never notice the difference.
My last example doesn’t involve a thermostat, but it’s still related to heat. Change out the filter on your furnace. I was very surprised that only a couple months into the season my furnace filter was completely clogged with dirt and debris. A new filter costs almost nothing and will keep your furnace running at maximum efficiency.
Energy conservation is one of the most popular environmental initiatives these days. Even people who aren’t particularly concerned with the environment are on the bandwagon because everyone is looking for ways to save money and rightfully so. Regardless of trends or the economy, trying to conserve energy really seems like the way to go. Using less energy saves us money and reduces the carbon footprint of the entire world. It also lowers demand and reduces strain on existing power systems which helps us all. Here are some examples of what we did in our office to help out.
One of the main energy consumers in any office is lighting. In order to make a difference we focused on lights in common areas that stay on at all hours. The hallways already had fluorescent bulbs, so next was our elevator and lobby. The original bulbs we installed were burning out too often so they were upgraded to LEDs. They are more expensive but they have a really long lifespan and use very little electricity. Now we don’t have to waste time changing out light bulbs every week. If you want to get it done for as little money as possible, you want CFLs. They are cheap but still have a long lifespan. We also installed motion sensing timers for our bathroom light switches. You walk in and the lights and fan turn on automatically. More importantly, they turn off automatically. This saves energy, plus it’s one less thing you have to touch in the bathroom.
Last installment I talked about how even though Zone 5 had to move, we were able to avoid constructing a new building which helped us to keep our carbon footprint contained. Now I’d like to highlight some things we did inside the building. Since it needed an interior makeover there was an opportunity to incorporate some reclaimed and sustainable materials. 
We use a lot of natural resources. Water, trees, oil, land and more. Some people think we are using too many natural resources too quickly and eventually we are going to run out if we don’t change our ways. As I mentioned in the beginning of this blog, I’m no fanatic, but it can’t hurt to try and be conscious of what products and materials we’re using right? If there was a renewable product that served the same purpose as a product that wasn’t renewable shouldn’t we try to use the former? When you apply this line of thinking in construction, one option is finding ways to get the materials you need from a natural source without killing it. Another option is to reuse or reclaim something that’s already been produced. Zone 5 was able to do both of these things inside our office.
without killing it. In our case we used it for one of it’s more common applications which is flooring. It looks great and receives a lot of compliments. While hardwood was used for a couple applications around the office(mostly the wine rack) in this instance we were able to substitute bamboo in place of hardwood flooring and hopefully preserved a couple trees in the process.
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