What can I do to save the planet - not a lot. But if everyone did their little bit then all these little bits
add up. As an added plus you save money!
PAPER, INK and POST
I use email to reduce paper and ink consumption use email. Trees, transport, energy all needed to
make paper and deliver it, even recycled paper consumes energy to clean and transport it. It costs (transport and energy) to dump or recycle the waste paper. The post uses transport
to collect and deliver. This also saves on fuel and reduces pollution. Saves on Ink and toner most
come in plastic cartridges that could be recycled but in most cases are not, some even have a microchip
in them to prevent them being refilled and most end up in land fills.
The other problem with paper is trying to find the bit you want unless you have a well organised
filling system which takes both time and space and then you have to remember, what did you file it under? Many
things could be filed under different headings.
With electronic filing on the other hand you can search to whole lot in minutes for keywords, titles etc.
With hard drives and USB memory so cheap and small. Can also be archived onto CD's (600Mbytes) and DVD's
(4Gbytes). But make sure you back up these files in case of fire, theft or drive failure. Best to
have a copy on different premises ie, home data backup at work or your mothers etc., work files at home
in case of fire or theft. Paper files in a fire are lost unless you buy a very expensive fire proof
safe. Backed up files stored in a different location can be a lifesaver. Rather then spending hours
backing up all files you automatically back up only the files created or changed since the last backup. This can
be done at no cost using dos bat and xcopy (PC). You need a bit of time to write the script which
automates the process. If you want a bit of help with this let me know. You can buy commercial
software for this. Personally I am against backup programs which combine all the files into one big
compressed file. Whist this saves space, file corruption can mean the whole lot is lost. Also individual
files have to be "recovered" first. Disk space is so cheap now, is it worth the trouble?
There is very little that I must actually post. Invoices, statements,
proofs etc., are all emailed. I use a pdf print driver to print to a file which can be sent by email to
any computer and read by Adobe
Reader obtainable for free from adobe-reader.
This means that the client doesn't need the creation program to be able to open the file.
I put hidden pages and other visuals for discussion on the internet so that both the client and
myself can view and discuss it.
Websites under development or revamping are put on a temporary hidden
web page until approved then made live.
I can be sitting comfortably here, the client can be anywhere in the
world, we can both look at the same internet page or whatever I put up for discussion which can be
password protected to prevent unauthorised viewing. We can freely discuss by voice via msn (free) voip
cheaper that normal telephone with the added advantage hands free via freestanding desk mike and
loudspeakers or teletype via msn or via a private chat room hidden on my website for the passing of
links which can be clicked on to display the content. So as we both see, hear and get the links
instantly its a good as the client in the same room without the inconvenience and cost of travelling. It
also has the advantage that its not limited to two, with conferencing it can be extended to almost an
unlimited number.
I am only using energy saving light bulbs and tubes to keep the bill small.
We compost what can be composted this returns the goodness back to the soil. Plastic, metal, cloth and paper recycled. In fact very little needs to end up as a landfill.