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Green Office Spotlight: Winter 2020

The Green Office Program engages faculty and staff in the process of adopting environmental best practices in the workplace. The program offers guidance on conserving energy and water, reducing waste, and increasing environmental awareness on campus. The process empowers all of our faculty and staff to become green leaders, and its success is based on broad engagement and collective impact.

Read about two new initiatives carried out by the Green Teams at School of Professional Studies Facilities/IT and Pritzker School of Law Facilities as a part of their Green Office Certification efforts.

School of Professional Studies IT/Facilities:

Toner Recycling

Jason Detloff, Office Assistant, School of Professional Studies

When our department first became Green Certified through sustainNU, one of the first projects I began working on was cleaning out a few of our tech closets for electronics recycling.  While cleaning I would find boxes of used toner from both copiers and printers strewn about. I went around to a few other departments and found that a good number of co-workers had just let them pile up too, as they were unsure how to properly recycle toner.  I went online to see if there was anything regarding an efficient way to recycle toner and found HP’s toner recycling page.
 
All you have to do is click here and follow the prompts. HP will send a box with a pre-paid label. Most boxes are delivered in about a week.  Just fill up the boxes with toner and then send them back to HP at your convenience. 

SPS has been using this service for the past few years.  We’ve set it up so that staff brings IT/Facilities used toner, we fill up a box and send it out to be recycled every 6 months or so.  It is simple, free and an easy solution to make sure that used toner is properly disposed of.

To learn more about recycling on campus, including toner ink cartridges, please check out What You Can Recycle.

Pritzker School of Law Facilities:

Stakeholder Engagement 

Katrina Peters, A/V Operations Manager, Pritzker School of Law

As part of the Law School’s Administrative Services and Dean’s Office Green Team, the Facilities team has been able to work with individual students and student representatives of the Student Bar Association on green initiatives that they want to prioritize.  This collaboration has led to an overhaul and complete re-design of our trash and recycling bins throughout the Law campus, and continue to look for new ways of engaging the rest of the Law community in order to increase awareness and knowledge of the recycling process.

Interested in starting a Green Team at your office? Learn more about the Green Office Program.