We have seen recently more and more efforts towards more eco-friendly and sustainable products. Sustainable products are these products that provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health, welfare, and environment over their full commercial cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to final disposition.
The company Hacoa brings this notion full circle with a collection of elegant wooden office products. The collection is quite diversified going from keyboards, to paper clip holder and even USB flash drives, and all products have a nice Zen feel to them. Enjoy
Paper Clips holder
Apple Keyboard Stand
Keyboard
Usb Flash Drive
Mouse Pad
Stapler
The only fear I have about using these products is the amount of splitters you might get, especially while typing on the keyboard.
This is part II of our 5 part Guide to Green Office. This guide contains ways of measuring your environmental impacts as well as a checklist for things one could do in terms of greening one’s product line.
A. Measuring the Environmental Impact of Switching to Green Products
To determine the environmental impacts of various types of paper in terms of energy used, greenhouse gases and other air pollutants emitted, waste water volume and pollutants discharged, and solid waste generated, enter the appropriate data in the Environmental Defense Paper Calculator: http://www.environmentaldefense.org/papercalculator/. This website provides charts and graphs showing the impacts of different types of paper (freesheet, groundwood, corrugated, and paperboard, etc.) with different recycled contents.
Comparisons:
A pallet of copier paper (20-lb. sheet weight or 20#) contains 40 cartons at 50 pounds each and weighs one ton (2000 lbs). Each ton of such virgin paper (no post-consumer content) uses 24 trees.
One carton (10 reams) of virgin copier paper uses 0.6 trees.
One tree makes 16 2/3 reams of copy paper, or 8333 sheets.
Source: Conservatree http://www.conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml .
Using green products in your own operations (Check all that currently apply or interest you).
Paper and plastic products with significant quantities of post-consumer recycled content
Re-manufactured products (e.g., ink and laser toner cartridges)
Electrical products that are solar powered (e.g., calculators) or certified as energy efficient by Energy Star
Compact fluorescent light bulbs and other energy efficient lighting
Products that are reusable, rewritable, refillable, rechargeable, more durable or repairable
Products that are recyclable
Cleaners and solvents that are nontoxic; non-VOC (volatile organic compound); biodegradable; water-based; ammonia-, phosphate-, and chlorine free; and derived from renewable resources rather than petroleum
Detergents, cleaners and other liquids in concentrate, which minimizes packaging
Writing instruments with non-toxic inks or other marking fluids
Furniture, carpets, and paints that do not emit harmful levels of VOCs from adhesives or finishes
Products made from plant-based materials
Compostable items, such as garbage and grocery bags
Power strips and other devices that enable you to manually or automatically cut power when not needed
Products certified by reputable third parties as being environmentally superior in specific ways, such as those noted above (See the Green Glossary for a listing of some popular certifications.)
Given some unrestrained imagination, spare time, and a few neglected items in the office supply closet, everyone can make their workspace more functional, and create some more fun tools for the home and office. We are now going to take a look at some unexpected ways to use your daily office supplies readily available in your office. Get organized and save some money with these great low cost, easy to make office supply hacks you can do in less than 1 minute.
Everyone’s favorite office supply can be transformed into infinite other useful tools in the examples below.
D.I.Y. Notebook Stand
With 4 binder clips and 4 sheets of paper, you can create the most inexpensive notebook stand that will sure to save your computer from over heating as well as unnecessary expenditures.
Patterned Paper Clips
Make your own high-end fashionable and functional binder clips that will sure to add personality and accent to even the mundanest of office tasks.
Toothpaste Clip
Keep you half-used toothpaste accessible by rounding up the end and fastening the end with a binder clip.
Pictures and pencil holder
This brilliant device use 8 binder clips secured by rubber bands of your choice. The ensuing device will be sure to provide you with endless fun as you try to create intriguing tessellations with various pictures and your favorite pens.
Chips Clip
Keep your favorite snacks fresh and crispy with binder clips.
Hanging folders stopper
Keep your hanging files nicely stable and separated by placing binder clips where you see fit.
Cable catcher
Organize your unruly cables with binder clips.
Paper Clips Hack
The following hacks will take one of the smallest of office supplies into something extremely useful.
Paper Clip into Clothing Pin
When in need of a clothing pin, grab a paper clip off of the corner of your desk and bend it into its familiar relative, the clothing pin.
Turn Paper Clip into Lock Picks
Check this video out if you want to learn how to turn a little paper clip into the essential tool to pick locks!
Paper Clip into Zipper Pull
When your zipper goes missing, replace the end part with a paper clip, and you will be sure to attract attention where there wasn’t.
The following hacks below allow you to do quite a lot with a flimsy piece of tape.
Relabel with tape
Next time you’re labeling, lay a strip of clear tape onto the folder tab before you apply your label. Next time you’re re-organizing, re-using the folder will be as simple as pulling the label off the tape. The tape protector works on just about anything you’d potentially re-use, so keep a roll of the clear stuff handy.
Tape Page Turner
One of my favorite office supply hacks because it is so effortless to make, but so useful, especially when I have to go through massive amount of papers. Simply reverse tape your index finger. Make sure the sticky side face outside. Rub the sticky part on paper towel, or cloth material a bit, so it picks up some lint and looses some stickiness. Now you have the perfect page turner, with enough stickiness to help you glide through pages.
This stretchy little office supply is so versatile and can be transformed into so many things!
A Pencil Eraser
Fold a rubber band in half a few times and use it to erase pencil markings. It works surprisingly well.
A Wallet Replacement
Is you wallet showing wear and tear rather ungracefully? Get rid of it. Instead, wrap your cash around your ID and credit card and then wrap a rubber band around the outside of the cash.
Elastic Hold-It-All
Completely original. This simple hack will turn your cubicle into the MOMA of office supplies. All you need is 2 push pins, with an elastic band of your choice in between. And viola, you now have an extremely versatile device that will hold almost anything from pictures, to notes, to pens, to decorative objects, to even my lunch!
Exacto Knife Hack
Turn your used Exacto blades into an inspired ninja weapon.
Letter Tray Hack
Place all your unruly hardware on your desk and you will have the extra space you always craved for on your desk.
With a little bit of time and effort. You could turn the ugliest particle clip-board lying around into the best looking photo frame of your choice! This should also be relatively inexpensive compared to any store bought photo frame.
This is a ruler turned post-its holder, that is probably more applicable to certain offices than others. This is for all the cubicles that have cloth material as dividers. Though this type of material may be good at muffling sounds, and pinning thumb tacks in, the material is really bad at holding anything with a sticky surface. Thus, thanks to my ingenious co-worker, he devised this ruler hanging by a thumb-tack to be a hold all for post-its! Ingenious!
For more examples of office hacks from our blog, click here!
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Lets face it, most of us work. Unfortunately, I am not the grand-daughter of William Hearst, or the wife of Jerry Yang (CEO OF YAHOO, IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT WAKE UP AND SMELL THE FORBES.COM, GOD!). Still, the workplace can be an interesting place to play with gender roles, sexuality, and class. The way you dress to work defines what you do, where you work, and how you work it. For i-bankers, the “suit” look is dissected maliciously; executives judge their future slaves by the color, design and brand of the garments. More specifically, I would like to now focus on the visual language of office uniform when it comes to “working girls”. I would rather focus on working girls because outfits and styles change more for women than for men.
LETS START WITH THE 50’s.
If you were a working girl during the 1950’s you were either on crack, a prostitute, or divorced. The definition of working girls in the 50’s really means you are working inside your home- cooking, cleaning. Lets take a look at their fashions, and see how it reflects their lifestyle: notice the obligatory aprons, waist clinching bodice, and the full circle skirt. Lovely, truly lovely.
THE 60’s WORKING GIRL.
The sixties working girl uniform changes slightly from what was known before, women are more encouraged to work, taking clerical, secretarial, or even sales associate jobs at various companies. Of course there are always the select few women who became doctors and executives, but since we are keeping things simple here lets not get carried away. The typical uniform consisted of a knee length skirt, a blouse, and a vest. She could have also worn a long sleeved shift dress with button details. The silhouette is straight, with a slight A-line twist. This was a dramatic change from the silhouette from the previous decade.
DISCO DISCO 70’s
The seventies saw a higher rise of working girls. As women’s rights progressed and birth control was available (still taboo of course), women saw more freedom and rights. By this point I’d say there was a strong divide between the housewife leech, and the independent working woman. The jobs were still limited, as most men took hold of capitalist America. Many women still took jobs only as a venue to meet men. Here are some pictures of the film 9-5 with Dolly Parton and Jane Fonda. One of the major additions to seventies working girl uniform was the BISHOP SLEEVE, which is slighty puffier at the wrist than at the top. Look at these sex kittens, don’t you just want to drool over the dorky glasses and flower prints? What about the heavy usage of colored eye shadow? And the permed hair which functions more like a bird’s nest? This kind of bouffant actually reminds me of the Marie Antoinette times.
I LOVE THE 80’s
Think Donna Karan body suits, full men’s pantsuits with broad shoulders, GLITZ, GLAMOUR, chunky gold jewels, and last but not least; heavy eyeliner and crazy red lip. YES we love the eighties. The epitome of the EIGHTIES power dressing movement captured on film would be WORKING GIRL with Melanie Griffith. This is one of my all time faves and the outfits of this movie captures this time so perfectly. I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND padded shoulders, but hey, who really understands the body suit? I don’t understand any of it, but it surely is great in all its cracked out goodness.
90’s OFFICE FASHION
Heather locklear in Melrose Place defines the work uniform pretty well, and you know she got a lot of bootay on that show, just from her hemlines. Look at the hot miniskirt suit in RED. You gotta love the nineties. Outfits like this were quite typical, and the 80’s suit still continued on, just not without the padded shoulders. Oh, lets not forget Sharon stone in Basic Instinct and her outfit in the smoky questioning scene. That kind of working girl hotness cant’ be beat.
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This amazing piece of office supplies art is made by Steven Nicholson is a 2yr student at Plymouth university in the United Kingdom studying Graphic communications with typography. And apparently he is a genius with a hole punch? Check out this self portrait using 10 different sized hole punches on 1 piece of paper that he just sent over. Can you imagine the patience?
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