Setting Up Your Office Recycling Program

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 Wrong Way to Recycle Paper

Your organization worked hard to implement its recycling plan. Your staff has been trained on its importance and how it works. All the pieces seem to be in place for a successful recycling plan. Yet somehow, it’s not working. Fortunately, most recycling plans can be tweaked by overcoming a few common mistakes. Let’s take a closer look at some of these issues encountered when you recycle paper.

Most paper types can be recycled
Many people only recycle plain white paper because they are unsure of what other paper types can be recycled. Magazines, brochures, newspapers, envelopes, shredded paper, and even glossy paper can all be recycled; the only exception is paper with a thick coating. Just keep this in mind: if you can tear it, you can recycle it. Take a look here for more tips on what NOT to put in the recycling bin.

Keep control over your recycling bins
If your recycling bins are full, people will throw recyclable items into the trash. To minimize overflow, make sure all recycled cardboard boxes are flattened to reduce space in the bin. It’s also important to communicate with your cleaning staff or document destruction partner to make sure the bins are being emptied regularly.

Labeling is essential
Recycling bin labels need to be large and easily visible to all employees, and they need to be specific. Rather than just saying “Recyclables,” the labels should clearly state whether the bin is for paper, plastic, bottles, or cans (depending on how you need to separate your materials). A quick walk through of your office is the best way to make sure all labels are properly in place. Employees should also understand that some recyclable products need special attention before being thrown into a bin. Check out some of these tips on how to handle paper scraps and other materials.

Make recycling convenient for your employees
Inconvenience may be the one mistake that slows down office recycling efforts the most. People are busy doing their jobs; if there isn’t a recycling bin in close proximity, recyclable items are likely headed for the trash. Make sure each department or floor is equipped with its own recycling tray or bin. There should also be recycling receptacles in all common areas, such as break rooms, kitchen areas, and printing/copy stations.

Employees should also have the correct information on all outside vendors who accept toner cartridges and other equipment to recycle. Recycling your office’s paper is important, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus of your recyclable plan. The Infomax website offers recycling tips and lists vendors who will accept empty toner cartridges.

For more information on how to fine tune your recycling plan, contact Infomax Office Systems today.

Spare a Landfill: Recycle that Toner Cartridge

That pile of empty toner cartridges can get pretty big, pretty fast in a busy office environment where a good deal of printing takes place. When it comes time to dispose of them, it’s essential to our environment to recycle those toner cartridges. Of the more than 500 million toner cartridges sold each year in the United States, an astonishing 350 million of those are sent to landfills. Considering it takes hundreds of years for the cartridge plastic to biodegrade, this is a problem that needs to be addressed in the name of corporate social responsibility. Fortunately, there are eco-friendly solutions that are readily available to businesses.

The many hazards of toner
Before we get into those eco-friendly solutions available to aid in recycling empty cartridges, let’s quickly go over how much damage toner can do to our environment. Toner ink contains toner dust, which can be carcinogenic. Among other health concerns, a recent study shows that the dust can cause issues with people’s eyes, lungs, and skin when in direct contact. If inhaled, it can lead to respiratory issues such as bronchitis.

Convenient solutions
Fortunately, there are options available for recycling your empty toner cartridges. The first option should be to find a local recycling facility. Infomax Office Systems has partnered with a number of vendors with locations that will accept toner cartridges for recycling. If you can’t get to a local facility on a regular basis, you can refill your cartridges. There are refill kits available to help you reuse your empty cartridges for as long as possible until you can get them to a recycling facility. These are simple solutions that can make recycling a routine part of your business and make your office a more sustainable one.

With so many empty toner cartridges ending up in our landfills, it’s essential that more businesses get on board with toner cartridge recycling solutions to help minimize the impact on our environment. For more information on how Infomax Office Solutions can assist with your recycling efforts and help you ‘green’ your office, contact us today!

Is Your Printer a Green Printer?

It is not a secret that printing a significant number of documents is not exactly the most environmentally friendly office practice. Despite this knowledge, having a printer in the office remains absolutely essential to a company’s success. That said, all printers are not created equal; some printers are greener—or more environmentally friendly—than others. Here are some easy ways to determine exactly how eco-friendly your office printers really are. It is never too late to ‘go green’ in the office, and this post will arm you with the information needed to help you do so, starting with your printers.

How much electricity is your printer using?

Energy consumption is generally an afterthought for most businesses; however, it must be considered more regularly in order to create more sustainable offices. Generally, business-grade inkjet printers use less electricity than other printers that rely on heat to fuse toner to paper. Fortunately, many printer manufacturers understand this issue and now make printers that are not as reliant on energy for efficiency. Look up the product specs for your printers to find out exactly how much power they use. This information will help you determine how your devices compare to other models when making future purchases.

Does it allow you to print on both sides of paper?

Printing large documents on individual sheets of paper is much more wasteful than necessary. Especially when the documents are only being used internally, as opposed to being handed off to a client, vendor, or partner. A printer that is equipped for duplex printing will enable you to easily print your documents on both sides of paper. This green option can cut your company’s paper consumption in half.

Is the printer multi-functional?

The more machines kept in the office, the more energy and consumables necessary to keep these devices up and running. Instead of having numerous machines that only have one purpose, consider investing in an all-in-one or multifunction printer (MFP). An MFP enables you to print, copy, scan, and fax from one single machine. Not only is this more efficient economically, but also logistically, as MFPs enable employees to multitask for a more efficient workflow and take up less office space.

Is it certified green?

ENERGY STAR certifies office technology devices that minimize operational power. For the most part, these machines stop using power and go into a ‘sleep mode’ when they are not used for a certain amount of time. This reduces the amount of energy used to operate certified machines. Additionally, they are easily programmed to go on standby mode, and in doing so, can save companies anywhere from 15 to 30 percent on printer-related expenses.

Businesses considering ‘going green’ can get started on their way to corporate responsibility by addressing simple technology devices like their printers. Spending a little extra time understanding how to improve your printer’s efficiency and effectiveness in the office can benefit your business, the environment, and your reputation with both clients and employees. Contact Infomax today to learn more.

The Link between Document Management and a Green Office

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.

Easy Ways to Practice Green Printing in the Office

Environmental responsibility is essential in today’s office. Not sure how to start doing your part, beyond recycling paper? Read on for some easy strategies to increase your company’s commitment to sustainability by focusing on greening your business’ printing practices.

● Print on both sides — Two-sided (also called duplex) printing is one of the fastest and easiest ways to green your printing practices. By choosing this setting, your printed documents will use as much as 50 percent less paper.

● Use fast or draft mode — Fast mode speeds up printing time and dramatically reduces the amount of toner used per page. Only print in normal or high-resolution if it’s absolutely necessary—like for formal presentations and proposals.

● Print in monochrome — Black and white printing uses less toner than color printing. Even “black” text can use color toner, unless you specifically designate grayscale or monochrome printing.

● Program eco-friendly defaults — The best way to ensure green printing practices from your staff is to make it automatic. Set all printers in your fleet to default to environmentally-friendly settings to ensure the biggest impact.

● Avoid printing pictures — Unless an image is essential for understanding the content, stick to text only when printing.

● Use print-friendly formats — If you must print a webpage, look for the printer icon—typically at the top of the page—to print without wasteful images, sidebars, and menus. For PowerPoint presentations, print in handout format, with three or six slides per page.

● Share print resources — A networked device makes it possible for multiple users to share one machine. You’ll save energy by slashing the number of machines in use, and you’ll have less unused, wasted time for each device.

● Consolidate to a multifunction printer (MFP) — A single MFP can handle the duties of a printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine. Switching to an MFP will use less power, take up less space, and save money.

● Use EnergyStar-certified machines — Look for the blue star that indicates a device is as energy-efficient as possible. These models will usually include advanced sleep modes to save power when not in use, upping your sustainability efforts even when you’re off the clock.

● Recycle printer cartridges — Used cartridges can be refilled as many as a dozen times, conserving raw materials and preventing waste.

Contact Infomax Office Systems today for help putting green printing practices in place for your company!

Do Your Part: The Big Impact of Toner Recycling

Electronic waste is one of the fastest-growing types of waste in today’s environment—and one of the most dangerous. From computer components to mobile devices, flash drives to batteries, electronic devices and their constituent parts are being used—and thrown away—more than ever before. Printer cartridges are a major contributor to the electronic waste problem. In North America alone, over 350 million printer cartridges end up in landfills each year. Not to mention, the entire process before the cartridge even gets to your office—drilling for oil, refining, shipping, manufacturing the cartridge, packaging, delivery, and sales.

With such an impact resulting from just a single printer cartridge, a little effort on your part can go a long way. A toner recycling program involving the toner cartridges you use will have a positive impact on the environment.

Disposal and Waste – Let’s start at the end—the final destination of a printer cartridge and its waste. It’s estimated that each laser printer in your office produces about 100 pounds of waste each year.  The majority of that waste ends up in landfills, where—for cartridges made from specialized non-biodegradable plastics—they take 1,000 years to filly decompose. Disposal also contaminates the surrounding environment—landfill-based cartridges can leach toxins into the ground, while incineration produces poisonous air pollution.

Production and Raw Materials – It takes approximately three quarts of oil to produce a single toner cartridge, and production of toner cartridges also takes its toll on energy and water. Fortunately, cartridges can be refilled as many as a dozen times, slashing the cost in raw materials, water usage, and energy expenditure. With consistent efforts, you can save as many as nine gallons (36 quarts!) of oil through recycling a single cartridge. Every component saves raw materials—the plastics, metals, and inks from a used cartridge can all be reclaimed and reused.

While technological strides for greener offices continue to advance, we can do our part for the environment today by simply recycling the toner cartridges we use. Consistently applied, this small habit can have a huge impact. Contact Infomax today to get a toner recycling program underway in your organization.

Document Management Can Help Green Your Business

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.

Going Green Starts with Your Office Equipment

There are plenty of ways to “go green” in your office. Many of these eco-friendly practices are intuitive, such as turning off your computer at the end of the day, and using the appropriate waste bins to separate trash from recyclables.

That said, more and more eco-conscious companies are making smarter hardware decisions to meet their green initiatives. Investing in efficient office equipment—such as printers, copiers, scanners, and MFPs—saves energy without sacrificing quality.

Here are some tips for choosing greener hardware for your office:

  • Invest in efficiency. Typically, office equipment usage accounts for up to 40 percent of a company’s energy bill. Highly efficient machines are simply better for your business in the long run—and also provide immediate cost savings. Be sure to select high-efficiency equipment, usually indicated by the ENERGY STAR symbol. This tells you that you’re purchasing an eco-friendly product, and can potentially reduce the energy used by your business’s hardware by up to 60 percent.
  • Consider the features. Does the MFP you are considering offer duplex printing, advanced sleep mode, and other eco-features? If not, you may want to keep looking. These features are essential for reducing energy consumption and chopping that electricity bill.
  • Buy local. In addition to supporting your local economy, buying or leasing your equipment from a local vendor ensures less gas is used for transportation. Big box office retailers use huge amounts of energy in the shipping of equipment from centralized warehouses to your office. Local inventory also means our machines are available for expedited delivery and installation, with on-site training for your staff.
  • Remember to consolidate. Do you really need separate devices for your printer, scanner, and fax machine? Instead of multiple devices that take up too much energy and office space, consider an MFP, or multi-function printer. Multi-functions systems ensure all of your document imaging needs are met, and consume about 40 percent less energy than offices with standalone devices.

These are just a few of the ways smart hardware decisions can help save the planet and your pocketbook. To learn more, contact Infomax today.

Why Recycle Toner Cartridges?

In a perfect world, businesses would never produce waste. After all, waste is not only bad for the environment, it’s also bad for the pocketbook. Because of how prevalent waste can be, oftentimes businesses overlook easy steps that could reduce their waste, such as recycling toner cartridges.

Here are some of the benefits of recycling those old toner cartridges.

  • Reducing emissions: By recycling toner cartridges, you help reduce the more than 40,000 tons of plastic and metal that goes into landfills, meaning you are also reducing air and water emissions. Landfilling, incineration, and the manufacturing of new cartridges are all cut down when you recycle your cartridges.
  • Conserving natural resources: Recycling means that you are taking part in a global effort to reduce the need for raw materials. This way, resources such as water, timber, oil, and minerals are being used less.
  • Saving energy: The amount of energy consumed when unneeded waste must be processed is astronomical. This is because the energy required to make a new cartridge is several times that of simply reusing or recycling an old one. Currently, only 20-40% of empty cartridges are recycled, meaning up to 80% go to landfills.
  • Improving quality: Saving the planet is great, but your business must still rely on high-quality cartridges. Fortunately, recycled cartridges are just as reliable as new ones. Also, recycled cartridges are cheaper. This way, you are saving money in multiple areas, and helping to reduce the 300 million cartridges that are thrown away each year.
  • Simplifying the process: Many businesses hesitate to begin recycling their cartridges, for fear that it is a tedious task. After all, business are busy places, and who needs one more thing to worry about? The reality is that recycling toner cartridges is easier than ever and can quickly be incorporated into your business.

Several of Infomax’s vendors accept toner cartridges for recycling. Click here to learn more, or contact us directly to learn more about the benefits of recycling toner cartridges and how you can get started.