The green evolution
We've reached a tipping point in our office, and I'm proud to give myself credit for the last and final shove. In response to my recent blogs and forum entries on going green, The Boss has asked me to help make our office a little greener, and I'm mighty pleased to take it on! As we make progress, I'll be writing about it here. I hope you'll let me know, too, about what you're doing at home or at your workplace.
We're starting with recycling, of course. Fortunately, we live in a town that really supports green living, and gives each household what they call a Smart Cart. It's a big, honkin', divided trash can on wheels; one side is for paper, and the other is for plastic, glass and cans. Once a week a special truck pulls up to the curb out front, its mechanical arm reaches out, fits itself precisely into the holes in the side of the bin, and then lifts the bin exactly so in order to line it up with the divider on the truck. Voila! Paper here, and the other stuff there.
Now the fact that we haven't been recycling probably means we're less evolved than our trash cans and garbage trucks, but we're getting with the program. Here are a couple of other things we're putting in place:
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We're joining Freecycle. If you don't know about it yet, you can thank me after you've become a member. The idea here is that everybody has stuff they don't need, and somebody else needs some of the stuff you have. And it's free. The only thing is you have to give something away before you can take advantage of one of the freebies from the other members. The green advantage here is that you aren't adding more stuff to the landfill, and one of the best ways to conserve energy is to limit the manufacturing and consumption of new stuff.
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I'm setting up a box under my desk for Goodwill contributions. I have a little boy who grows out of toys and clothes amazingly fast, so I keep a box near near my front door, and drop it off every four to six weeks. Like so many other green endeavors, this is one that benefits a community and the planet.
In case, I've led you to believe we're complete Neanderthals, let me tell you about something we already have in place. Just outside the entrance to the building we have a koi pond with a small waterfall. Our offices are in a converted old house on a very busy downtown artery, and the environmental benefits from the pond are many. The sound of the running water drowns out some of the traffic noise. The pond catches rainwater that is no doubt loaded with pollutants from the nearby roads, parking lots and lawns. The pollutants get filtered out, and the lilies, irises and all those other plants release fresh carbon dioxide back into the environment.
Our little pond has one other unintended benefit to the local wildlife: the raccoons love them fishies! So far we've placed a plastic owl and a floating alligator head out there. There's even a lovely statue of St. Francis, but he seems to be siding with the racoons. If you've ever come up with a good solution for this problem, please let us know.