Saving the environment at work

So you run a small business with a medium-sized office and have local clients in Dubai, whom you deal with on a daily basis. How could you save the environment at work? Well, quite frankly, there is a lot that can be done and what is even better, is that these actions would help you save some money as well.

To make it easier we could split up the tasks needed to be accomplished, into the objects that we are going to deal with:

Paper: Tonnes of paper are wasted worldwide and in Dubai on a daily basis, and this is only to do with office documentation. From resumes to forms, it is not only smart, but also cost-effective to go paperless. What’s more is that it will save more storage space helping you reduce the number of files, records and documents. Always keep only what is necessary and shred the rest. Shredding is a safe and secure way to dispose office documents and most shredding companies will pass on the bales to paper mills—saving trees.

Water: Water usage especially in a city like Dubai is an important concern since it is a precious commodity. Check whether all the faucets and pipes of the toilets are secure and functional; reducing water wastage. One can always sell the old parts as brass scrap or copper scrap rather than just dumping them at a landfill.

Electricity: It is always smart to run an office without too many cabins, too many cabins mean too much wiring and that is only the beginning of your maintenance expenses. Moreover cabins add to power bills and will require split air-conditioning when compared to a studio space which is open and utilizes less lighting and cooling. Teach employees about the importance of switching equipment off when not in use—this will make a difference.

Office Equipment: Office equipment like old printers, computers that are not in use should be discarded at a recycling plant where most of them can be reused. Older equipment is not only more expensive to maintain, but will also decrease efficiency when it comes to electricity. Again, it’s wise to get them exchanged with the dealer who you are buying new equipment from rather than disposing them off in trash. At least they will end up in scrap yards in Dubai where scrap metal recyclers will make use of them.

Is Disposing Trash in one bin Cheaper than Segregating it?

I am quite sure this question must have popped up in your mind at least once; “is it really worth segregating all my trash?” If you love the environment, then you probably would not need a valid reason. Else, if you are one of those who would simply recycle because the law forces you to, then this thought would have definitely come across your mind, every single time you sat down to segregate your daily trash.



Recycling can be simply defined as the process in which used materials can be processed into new products to prevent the waste of the remainder, while reducing the consumption of virgin materials for producing other new products. Simply put, it is environmentally good to recycle. “But isn’t disposing trash together in one garbage bag cheaper?” one may ask.

Just in case you are not aware about this, but it is a fact that landfills, worldwide are filling up—and fast. The worldwide population is rising to unprecedented levels and there is no space to get rid of the trash that we generate on a day-to-day basis. This is where I come back to your question; to which the answer is a big ‘NO’.
overnments and municipalities worldwide are paying large sums of money for getting rid of humongous amounts of waste into landfills. Landfills too will keep filling up, which is why landfills owners have begun landfill-mining. Landfill mining started-off back in 1953 in Israel and the rest of the world has only begun to catch up with it recently. The reason why it has caught up only recently is because there were other more important events that took place after 1953; following which most countries forgot about the whole concept. Landfill mining involves opening up closed landfills and filtering and sorting out the trash (mainly metals) which is then packed up and tucked in once again. Doing this is profitable, since large amounts of scrap metal can be recovered and more space can be created within the landfill itself. Scrap metal recyclers would be more than glad to take in such metals which mainly consists of ferrous scrap, copper scrap and aluminium scrap; usually in the form of cans (since most people dump them along with their regular trash). But this would also depend upon several other factors such as the quality of the scrap metals.




Recycling at home, kills the problem from the root, segregating trash at its origin; and is right about the best thing one can do to save this planet. After all it is we who are stuck here on the third rock from the Sun; and there is—as of today—no other place to go.