office recycling

Does your office recycle? If not, you might want to think about starting a program. Recycling is not only good for the environment but is also good for business in a variety of ways.

Recycling Saves Money

Recycling can minimize garbage disposal costs and potentially earn revenue for your business. Recycling reduces the amount of trash in your dumpster, as well as the frequency of trash pick-ups. You may even be able to negotiate your waste contracts to reduce the cost of trash collections. On average, it costs more for businesses to dispose of waste than to recycle the same amount of items. In fact, recycling is less expensive than land-filling since materials are being reused instead of occupying more space in landfills.

Recycling Can Save Office Space

Recycling paper files and scanning them into digital files will save a considerable amount of space in your office. After receiving documents, scan the necessary paperwork into a digital file and recycle your paper (or up-cycle it as printer paper or note paper). Not only does this save space in the office, but it saves money spent on file cabinets and paper as well. While this can benefit any office, it will be particularly space efficient for law firms whose work product is mostly contained on paper.

How To Start A Recycling Program

1. Start Small

If your office has never had a recycling program before, it is a good idea to start small, recycling only one or two categories of items. For instance, you may decide to start with paper and aluminum soda cans. Starting small allows you to more easily make decisions on how to begin. It will also allow you to make adjustments to the program as you deem necessary.

2. Appoint a Recycling Director

Any new initiative needs a leader to help design and implement the program. Find an employee who is already interested in recycling and will be a good advocate for the recycling program. Depending on the size of your law firm, you may need more than one director on the team.

3. Find a Collection Service

Before you begin collecting recyclables, it is a good idea to find and engage the recycling service. They may have rules that you need to be aware of, such as the types of bins with which you will be collecting recyclables. Contact a service before you make any decisions about how the program will be implemented so that you can include practices that fit their requirements.

4. Begin Collecting Recyclables

Once you decide which service you will be using, ask if they provide containers. If they do not, ask if they have a suggestion for what types of containers you should purchase. Once you have acquired containers, explain the program thoroughly to all staff and begin collecting.

Recycling is good for the environment and good for your firm. Your law firm can save money and save storage space in the office. You also may have some clients who are enthusiastic about recycling and will appreciate your effort to keep our world green.

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Like most businesses these days, law firms are becoming increasingly interested in managing the carbon footprint of their offices. Not only is it a good idea for the environment, it can also be good for business. Consumers care about the environment and feel good about doing business with a law firm that cares also. Implementing a program for recycling office computers and electronics is a good way to reduce your office’s carbon footprint.

Saving Resources

According to the EPA, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, “recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by more than 3,500 U.S. homes in a year.” Furthermore, recycling one million cell phones saves 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium. Recycling your computers and electronics saves energy and creates space in your office for upgraded computers and electronics. For offices interested in recycling their electronics, EPA.gov offers a wealth of good information on managing electronic waste.http://epa.gov/region4/rcra/ecycling.htm

EPA.gov suggests that before donating your electronics, you may want to consider upgrading your software instead of buying brand new products. If you still decide to proceed with recycling all of your hardware, then first delete all of your personal information from each computer and electronic device. You may also need to remove batteries from your electronics in case they need to be recycled separately.

Where to Recycle Electronics

Next, you will need to figure out where to recycle your goods. A good example to start with is Dell since many offices use Dell computers. The good news is that Dell will take unwanted computer equipment, in any condition, through their Dell Reconnect program. Dell Reconnect resells or recycles old technology while employing people through Goodwill. However, Dell recommends that equipment without resale value should be recycled through IT Asset Recycling. Dell will pick up your computers at your designated location, ship them to their facilities and evaluate them to determine value. Equipment without a resale value will be recycled, but if Dell determines that select items have resale value, they can help you resell your goods. Companies that are not looking to recycle large quantities of electronics can drop off their electronics at more than 2,000 locations in stores or at permanent drop-sites or mail them in.

Other major brands, such as Samsung, will recycle their own brand as well. They have fixed drop-off locations or you can mail back any Samsung branded end-of-life products, including televisions up to 50 pounds, to their recycling partner. Similar to Dell, Samsung is also committed to recycling their products as part of their environmentally conscious brand.

To learn more about how your office can donate your brand-specific products, visit EPA.gov to discover how and where you can drop off your items. Many brands offer to pick up their products from your location. To discover what their services and costs are, call their toll-free numbers as listed on their websites.

Security Issues

As a law firm, you are responsible for protecting the data of your clients. When disposing of computer equipment, there are specific measures you can take to ensure that the data on the computer does not fall into the hands of others.

One option is to remove the hard drive from your computer. Removing the hard drive before disposing of the computer means you will be able to keep the data in your hands, even after the computer itself is gone. After removing the hard drive, you can then dispose of the rest of the computer. It is a good idea to keep the hard drive in a secure place, label it with information about the computer it came from and the type of data that it contains. If ever you need to access the data in the future, you will have the information necessary to be able to extract the data you need.

Another option for keeping data out of the wrong hands is to wipe the hard drive clean. This is a process done by special software. There are free softwares and paid softwares that allow you to wipe the hard drive. Be aware that you may need to wipe it several times in order to remove all of the data. Also note that once you begin wiping data, you will not be able to retrieve it again, so be sure to back up any data that you need to keep into the future. If you are disposing of your computer with a company that specializes in disposal, ask if they offer the service of wiping the hard drive for you.

The American Bar Association has written an article that contains more information on special security measures attorneys need to consider when disposing of computer equipment, entitled “FYI: How To Dispose of Computer Equipment.” This article also contains a list of more resources outlining good information for disposing of equipment.

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