In the Break Room

Pack a Waste-Free Lunch
Save fuel: pack your lunch. By eliminating the drive to your local eatery, you can help reduce air-pollutant emissions. When packing your lunch, try using a reusable container that allows you to take home your leftovers. To save money and reduce waste, consider buying items in larger quantities, avoiding individually packaged items. Pack your lunch with realistic expectations of your hunger to prevent throwing out part of it.

Use Reusable Dishes
Stock your office kitchen or break rooms with reusable glasses, plates, and flatware instead of disposables. Encourage employees to reuse coffee mugs and dishes daily by washing and drying them on a dish rack. To further reduce waste, invite employees to bring their own tableware and napkins to office luncheons and parties.

Try Composting
Try setting up a bin in the break room to collect coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, and fruit scraps. Instead of throwing out those scraps and leftovers with the garbage, recycle them by composting. Compost serves as a soil conditioner that can help improve landscaping and reduce water usage.

Start the Day with Energy-Efficient Appliances
Set your coffeepots and other small appliances to use their built-in timers. Timers can start and stop coffee brewing at specific times. This helps save energy and keeps your coffee fresh. When replacing break-room appliances, consider energy-efficient models. To ensure you get the best product and environmental savings to suit your needs, look for the Energy Star symbol to compare water and energy usage.

Check for Leaks
Fix any leaks you find in office faucets and toilets. A faucet leaking one drop per second can waste up to 3,000 gallons of water each year. Toilets account for most of the water lost to leaks, and 25 percent of all toilets leak. Use a leak-detection dye tablet to check toilets; otherwise, you could waste about 200 gallons of water per toilet every day.