Greening your office

So, tell me, what do you see in the picture above?

Of course, you see the plants. They are green and they are living, not plastic. The curtains are not closed. The window invites natural light into your office. This not only saves energy (from not having to switch on the lights) but is also beneficial for your mental well-being. You can't see it well from this angle but the monitor is "black" (not on screen-saver with pictures moving around). Yes, switch off the monitor if you are going away from your work-station for a long time. Did you know that LCD monitors use only 10-20% as much power as CRT monitors? Put your computer on standby (energy-saving mode) when not in use; remember to off the computer before you leave your office and pull out the plug from the wall socket. A computer left operating for 24 hours a day dumps 1,500 lbs of CO2. It will take 100-150 trees just to offset this yearly emissions.

Ah, did you notice the tiny thrash bin? Yes, small is good. If you have a big thrash bin it suggests that you have a lot of thrash. But in fact, a lot of what goes into the thrash can be reused or recycled. Notice the green "sack" beside the thrash bin? That's my paper recycle bin I made yesterday. I was walking by a bag of thrash yesterday (see picture below) and saw a banner inside the bag. We had actually been trying for sometime to get hold of old banners to make into recycle bins.


The idea to reuse the banners was first suggested by some students from Kelab Alam Sekitar and Tzu Chi. I was wondering how to construct the bin without too much effort or having to use too much more materials like glue or cellophane tape. Then I remembered the huge gunny sacks used to store rice. I just folded the banner over to a suitable size with sufficient overlap at the ends to make sure the bin does not split open easily. One end (the bottom) I folded over a little (to make it stiff and "leak" proof) and stapled it (used a bigger-sized staple). For the top I just repeatedly folded the edge over (about 4 times) to hold the mouth or top opening. Simple. Very little extra materials needed. Easy to carry or transport. Colourful too.

Yes, we are initiating a Green Office (Pejabat Sejahtera) programme for USM. Stay tuned for more details. Meanwhile visit http://www.mus.edu/ for interesting stuff.