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Setting Up Your Office Recycling Program

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The development of a recycling program in the workplace is a great way for your organization to play a part in the improvement of our environment. To help ensure its effectiveness, before you put your program in place, there are a few preparations and assessments that need to take place around the office. Read on for some tips to help you make the most of your organization’s recycling program.

Find a leader – Every project needs a leader, and a recycling program should be no different than any other office project. Find someone who is passionate about the environment to spearhead the program. This person will be a cheerleader to help spread the word, and their enthusiasm will go a long way when it comes to the execution of your recycling program.

Analyze your trash – This may sound a bit strange, but it’s important to pay attention to the type of trash that flows through your office space. Understanding the type of materials that are most often used in your office will help you with further planning. For example, maybe plastic is the most common type of trash material at your workplace. In that case, you will want to include more bins for plastic objects, and maybe even at a larger size than for other materials.

Place recycle bins around the office – Make it as easy as possible for employees to recycle at any location within your office. Always make sure there is a recycling bin anywhere you have a trash can. The kitchen/lunch room, common areas, and reception areas should all have recycling bins. There should also be recycling bins at each desk. It should be extremely difficult for employees to find an excuse not to recycle.

It’s also important to make sure all bins are clearly labeled in large font. Using facility-specific waste images on your bins will also significantly help with the accuracy of recycled materials.

Educate and train – Most employees want to do the right thing and recycle; they just need the proper knowledge to do so. Create a set of recycling guidelines and post them in common areas around the office. These guidelines should include what should and should not be recycled, and where the bins are located. It’s also vital to inform your janitorial staff of your recycling guidelines to ensure that all materials are properly disposed.

Establishing an effective recycling program is a valuable green initiative for businesses of any type or size. Contact Infomax Office Systems today to learn more on how to set up a recycling program at your office.

The Link between Document Management and a Green Office

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It’s true that little changes add up, but reusable mugs and water bottles only take you so far. The best way to lessen your environmental impact, particularly when it comes to your company, is to go for a major business component revamp—like transitioning from paper to electronic document management. Read on to learn about the link between document management and a green office.

Paper Loses Purpose
With an electronic document management system, you no longer need to print every piece of information—in most cases, sharing and collaborating is simple and friction-free. You can share, email, review, and even sign digital documents in a centralized system. Document management eliminates the need to print separate copies for every department; you can all work from one central, up-to-date file.

Raw Material Madness
You’d be astounded at the amount of raw material you conserve when you move to digital document management. Less printing means less toner used and fewer cartridges manufactured. When you consider that manufacturing a single toner cartridge requires three liters of oil, it’s clear that curbing your printing habits can have a major impact. Your local landfill will thank you, too.

Storage Strategies
Document management can completely transform how you deal with documents once they’re out of primary circulation. It’s true that compliance regulations necessitate some hardcopy files, but it’s important to examine how much of what you’re printing and storing is actually required. Instead of dozens of cabinets filled with paper files (the vast majority of which will never be accessed again), you can store your documents on a tiny hard drive.

Poisonous Power
Until we’re running on 100 percent clean and renewable energy, more office equipment means faster draining of limited resources and the release of toxic pollutants. When you manage your documents digitally, you can cut back on the machinery required to run an office smoothly. Cut back on wattage by eliminating printers, reducing copiers, and consolidating multiple devices—like printers, scanners, copiers, and faxes—into a single machine. You will use less power to keep your office humming and will need less energy to control your climate.

Document management is a powerful way to improve your company’s green credentials and lessen your impact on the environment. To learn more about the big benefits of document management, contact Infomax today.

Document Management Can Help Green Your Business

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In the search for sustainability, it can often feel as though we have to choose between the planet and profits. Fortunately, new technologies are making environmentally friendly choices both smart and cost-effective. Document management is a perfect alignment of efficient technology and good corporate citizenship.

Whether the data you manage starts as digital assets or are scanned from paper originals, document management is about using software for the storage, searching, sharing, and tracking of business information.

Read on for a few ways document management systems can help your business go green while saving green.

Reduce printing needs – By going digital, your use of consumables like paper and toner can drop dramatically. Digital forms and customized routing of electronic documents eliminate the need for burdensome duplicate and triplicate forms and prevent the need for copies of copies for sharing purposes.  Document management can also reduce your carbon footprint and printing budget with the implementation of page caps for individual team members, ensuring your business is always printing smart.

Eliminate storage expenses – With document management, piles of paper are turned into streams of ones and zeroes—the language of computers. Instead of filling costly office space with rows of file cabinets, digital documents can be saved on DVD-ROMs, servers, and hard drives, using a tiny fraction of the space needed for physical documents. How would that space better serve your business once all those old paper files are shredded and recycled?

Improve access efficiency – Digital documents can be indexed and searched right from your desktop. This improved efficiency saves your business money, as your employees can easily access files that once took them hours to find in filing cabinets. You can retrieve records from a designated date range, pull up the order history for a specific vendor, and even search the content of documents for keywords. A well-designed document management system makes accessing your data fast and intuitive, whether it’s for daily customer service or infrequent archive searches. This improved productivity means you’ll be going green while saving green—it doesn’t get much better than that!

Document management is a smart and easy way to green your business. It’s kinder to the environment, faster for your staff, and better for your bottom line.

Contact us today to learn more about document management solutions and how Infomax can help you implement this green strategy.