Why so hard to go Green?

We know a lot of companies are into the whole green thing these days, and why not?   It’s awesome for the environment.   We at Schipul are a bunch of “green folks” at home, but are finding it hard to get things started in the office.   We’ve decided to take our recycling issues to the interwebs and outline our journey to a greener office right here!   Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comment box.

Here are some of the biggest issues we’re facing:

Our building does not offer recycling at this time… and apparently we are the only tenants interested in said recycling.   We would gladly pay for this service and contract it ourselves, but we’d really like to start something building-wide so the movement is bigger than just Schipul.   Thankfully, our building is working on the recycling issue with us and we will head up the coalition.

How exactly should we go about recycling paper when so many of the paper we get rid of needs to be shredded because of “sensitive information?”   We could shred the paper and then recycle it, but a lot of recycling companies won’t pick up shredded paper.   There are quite a few companies that will come out to the office and actually shred your paper for you (then recycle it), so that is a solution we’re thinking about too.

Getting everyone involved in the recycling issue could be tough too.   Yes, everyone says they’re green, but in the office it’s too easy to throw that coke can in the trash or waste countless sheets of paper on a test print.   This cool article by the California Integrated Waste Management Board suggests managers must be involved from the get go so that is something else we are exploring.

These are just our initial observations and it’s almost a given we’ll encounter more stumbling blocks along the way, which you can read about here!

In the mean time, here are some cool resources to help you go green:

  1. The Green Houston part of visithoustontexas.com has a lot of cool info on whats green in our city
  2. California Integrated Waste Management Board has a bunch of cool tips and how-to guides
  3. MCNBC has a whole area of their site dedicated to going green and it’s updated constantly
  4. The National Geographic’s “The Green Guide” offers everything from green traveling tips to an awesome assortment of green blogs
  5. “Turning Houston Green” is a blog dedicated to helping Houston Homeowners stay green

(Thank you VS for the awesome Flickr Photo!!)