Earth911 (earth911.com) has an excellent article on substitutions for commonly used, disposable and single-use office supplies.
Reusable Replacements for the Office
Some of the suggestions:
1) Refillable dry erase markers
- each refill container replaces more than 20 disposable markers & they are 100% recyclable at the end of their life
2) Staple-free staplers in place of staples & paper clips
- These cut a small strip of paper and use it to "stitch" documents together.
- We have experimented with these in the office (I have one on my desk) and they are not good for documents that will be frequently handled as they are not as sturdy as normal staples nor are they good for documents with more than about 5 pages. Feel free to give my "stapler" a try!
3) Use digital "sticky notes" and notepads to replace traditional sticky notes
- Check out Noryne's computer to see what these can look like!
- Post-It also has a digital version for $9.99
- One thing I do is take paper that is used on 1 side and cut it down into 8.5x5.5 note pads held together with a binder clip. While this doesn't eliminate waste, it does reduce it! I also use the back sides of Page-A-Day type calendars for notes
4) Use refillable pens & pencils
- When the ink or lead runs out, simply refill them!
