Ten things to do to stop (or slow down) global warming

Here are 10 simple things you can do and how much carbon dioxide you'll save doing them.

Change a light
Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Drive less
Walk, bike, carpool or take mass transit more often. You'll save one pound of carbon dioxide for every mile you don't drive!

Recycle more
You can save 2.400 pounds of carbon dioxide per year by recycling just half of your household waste.

Check your tires
Keeping your tires inflated properly can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere!

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of CO2 saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year).

Avoid products with a lot of packaging
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Adjust your thermostat
Moving your thermostat just 2 degrees in winter and up 2 degrees in summer you could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment.

Plant a tree
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

Turn off electronic devices
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you're not using them will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Spread the word!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please see http://www.saahas.org

How to cut down on paper usage at workplace

Here's how you can cut down on paper usage at work. Paper is wasted more than any other item in offices. You also use paper more than anything else in your office.

1. Measure the amount of paper that you use in your office.

Looking at where paper is used in office.

Consider whether or not you and your employees are using these following paper and cost saving measures within your office:
are you cutting down on how many images/documents are being printed and/or copied? You can do this through the following:

• --viewing documents online
• --keeping mailing lists current
• --using routing slips
• --making more use of email instead of printed memos
• --reduce how many times things are being unnecessarily printed

are you collecting and recycling paper in your office?
are you regularly purchasing recycled paper?
do you recycle paper by using left-over paper as scratch paper?
can you reduce the size of paper used?
are you making employees aware of how they can cut down on paper?

2. Consider a paperless office.

Many people are trying to move towards making their offices and businesses entirely paperless. This approach has some drawbacks and some benefits. Here's an overview of why you would want to and why you might not want to make your office paperless. While you will save costs on your paper, you might rack up costs in other areas, including a reduction of productivity until your employees learn how to use the new systems.

Essentially, a paperless office makes use of different technologies and information systems in an effort to reduce the amount of paper that is used throughout the office. This ideally will result in reducing costs and increasing effectiveness.

With a paperless office, you will actually just send your document to a receiving machine straight from your computer. Then every letter that is on the document is processed as text through the use of Optical Character Recognition, so that you can use Microsoft Word to edit the document without too much hassle.

4. Use content management systems

You can make use of content management systems to allow all employees to access a document and work on it collaboratively. You can set up access to the document so that only people working on a project have access to the project.

5. Pros of paperless offices

a. cost efficiency
b. time efficiency
c. better organization
d. potential to cut down on mistakes

6. Cons of paperless offices

a. you won't actually stop using paper
b. your computers can crash and destroy your office
c. need for constant updates
d. need to constantly upgrade technology
e. have to fight against the mindset of the office

Our first 'small' step...

Monday, July 16, 2007. Yes, on that lazy noon, we took our first 'small' step towards creating general awareness about reuse of waste paper. "We"! Well, that includes, I, Nivs (Nivedita), Cindz (Cinduja), Nir (Niraj), and good ol' Santy (Santosh).

Off we started collecting a few sheets of waste paper (actually, torn paper or paper with one-sided print), jotted down a few tips on optimal use or reuse of paper, and pasted the awareness chits around cubicles. There were quite a few curious co-workers and a few naughty ones too, who simply wanted to put their hands on those awareness chits and tear them apart. Of course, they were being playful!

Our first lessons learned: the writing on the chits were pretty small, barely visible from a short distance, and quite bland. I second Harish that we should have more colorful, eye-catching, and more visible chits next time.

(Well, life always gives a second chance, doesn't it?)