Paperwork reduction project

One of my Make Thyself a Better Person projects this year is to reduce, reuse, and recycle the amount of paper I consume. I am trying to be more environmentally friendly both at work and at home.

So, I told my intern at work, Don't make me any more of those green project folders with the job ticket printouts! Waste not, want not! I've become so digitally-oriented that I can make do with the electronic files on the central server or in my email. Everything is digitally filed and organized according to a very strict system I developed for any of my colleagues to be able to access these files in the event that someone "gets hit by a bus", as our company saying goes.

I've even requested a hand towel bar in the bathroom, so that we can all stop using up the fancy, schmancy Z-fold paper towels. (I'm pretty sure the request hasn't been granted because The Boss thinks the towel bar will interfere with our strategically designed bathroom decor – it's been 3 months since I asked for it!) So. I've brought in an old cloth towel and now use that for hand drying.

We also just started recycling as a company. My work belongs to a condo association and they won't approve the recycling fees, so we've never recycled before until my colleague volunteered to buy the big bins and to drive to work 1x a month to empty them at her own building!

It's just a start.

Now I'm trying to extend the same philosophy to my home life by tearing out recipes and interesting articles, and organizing them into three-ring binders. I admit that I have a hoarding issue – I have endless stacks of Real Simple, Food & Wine, Bon Appetit, Fitness, W, a plethora of design mags... you name it, I have it. Many of them date as far back as 2005. A few years ago, when we upped and moved to Chicago, I FINALLY relinquished control of those mags from my college years of 1999-2003! (I know, I have a serious problem.)

The stack on the left is finished and ready to be recycled. The two stacks on the right have yet to be pored over, but at least they're categorically sorted into food and design mags. Sadly, these aren't even all the mags in my possession. There are boxes more under the bed and in the rack downstairs.

I'm slowly but surely making headway this weekend and whittling down the daunting stack of mags, and each day is one step closer to positively reducing and recycling my paper consumption. It feels good.