It’s Easy Being Green

With gas prices still on the rise and holding at record levels, there seems to be a lot of discussion revolving around shortening the work week to only four days.  Some schools in Arizona are considering the move because not running busses one day out of the week would save a tremendous amount on fuel costs.  It would also help out family budgets since they would be driving to school one less day every week.  But can parents handle the extra day of the kids being home to save some money on gas?  Is it worth one less day of education every week?  Those are interesting questions that will only be answered if someone actually passes this measure and it goes into effect.

In addition to schools, some employers are kicking around the idea of going to 4 day work weeks as well.  You’re still going to work 40 hours in those 4 days.  Or you could telecommute one day out of the week.  That move would supposedly save a lot of fuel consumption too.  But, if you had one extra day off work, do you think you would end up driving the same amount you would normally going to and from work that day?  Has your employer considered an idea like this or have you presented it to them?  Let us know!

Have you ever thought about just how much goes into producing a tiny staple?  It’s one of the many surprisingly small items that when you look at the big picture, have a fairly large impact on our environment.  Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group, says if 10 Million office workers each used one less staple a day it would save 120 tons of steel a year.  120 tons!

So, how do I use one less staple you might ask?  Well, you could use a product you use over and over like a paper clip or you could simply dog-ear the pages you want to stick together.  Or, you could use a handy staple free stapler created by a company called Made by Humans.  The small gadget cuts a hole in the stack of papers you want to attach together and then stitches the flaps down on the back of the last page as you pull the stack out.  You get five color choices and it will attach up to 5 sheets of paper together.