This week, it’s the European Week for Waste Reduction, getting us all to think a little more about what we waste.
To give you some practical advice on what you can do to cut down the amount you throw away, we’re going to hand over to some of the members of the University of Chichester who have submitted their tips!
To encourage the team to reduce their printing costs and the amount that they print each month, Katie sends out the monthly printing statements from the print shop, which shows how many pages each colleague has printed. Katie Akerman, AQS.
Instead of throwing away food that is leftover from meetings, it is brought back to the office in the first instance, and depending on volume would then be shared with other offices. Katie Akerman, AQS.
ASC Scrutiny Group committee members were asked if they are happy to accept electronic copies of papers, whilst still offering paper copies to those who need them. Most members have electronic devices that they can bring to meetings, meaning much less papers is used to distribute copies. Helen Bicknell, AQS.
On windows PCs, if you go to the left hand side by the start button and type ‘sticky notes into ‘search programmes and files’ you can get electronic post it notes on your desktop screen – thus you can save paper and waste when you’re at your PC and keep things handy! Suzanne Jones, Human Resources.
Most forms that are created by the department are handled electronically, and we have worked to ensure that students / staff and externals can access these form either via the website, intranet, or are sent out electronically. We have a small supply of mitigating circumstances forms on paper for students, and Ellie and Helen ensure that only a small amount are ordered at a time, and stock levels are monitored so that more can be ordered when needed, but we aren’t left with any leftover at the end of the year. Helen Bicknell, AQS.
AQS collects incoming envelopes and reuses them in preference to new envelopes – for internal use to other colleagues. Helen Bicknell, AQS.
To remind the team to team to only print things when they are needed, Katie produced some small labels and attached them to the printer to remind colleagues to think about what they are printing. The University’s system sends a document to the printer, and you have to click on the document at the printer in order to print it, so you get the chance to delete the document from the print queue if you realise you don’t need to print it anymore, therefore the labels on the printer are in an effective place. Katie Akerman, AQS.
One of the papers going to the group was made up of nearly 50 pages, most of which were appendices (which more than likely wont even be looked at), so I decided to just print the main body of the document (only 7 pages) and ensure members receiving hard copies had the whole document electronically, saving a whole bunch of paper. Helen Bicknell, AQS.
