I’ve had my office now for 6 years and during that time I have always cleaned the office myself, or enlisted the help of my husband (on the weekends no less) to help out.

My office is pretty small, two small offices with a central meeting room and a single bathroom.  I thought it was crazy to spend a few hundred dollars a month on cleaning when I can just spend 1-2 hours a week cleaning it myself at the end of the day.  I did this for 6 years until I realized how wrong I was.

The trigger started when I got sick this past winter.  I had a chest infection that I couldn’t shake.  One day my husband went down to the office to do a thorough clean and called me to tell me something gross.  He pulled out the furniture from the wall and found so much dust behind there that he started having a sneezing attack.  To make matters worse, he found some mold behind the water cooler, which had been leaking for who nows how long.

Now I don’t know if my chest infection was a result of breathing in junk in the office, but what I do know is that what I thought I was doing (cleaning the office), wasn;t actually cleaning at all.  I decided I had enough and decided to call in a professional cleaning company to come in and do it right.  If I calculated the 6-10 hours I spent each month doing a poor job at cleaning, I realized that it was cheaper, easier and more efficient to just hire a cleaning company.

The next week, Steve from Carolina Office Cleaning, an office cleaning company in Charlotte, came down and gave me an estimate.  I signed up with them 3 months ago and couldn’t be happier.  I leave the office at night and come back the next morning to a very clean office environment.  I didn’t realize how dirty the office was until it was really cleaned.  I feel happier in my clean environment and it has motivated me to organize everything else in the office, making me an efficient bee for the first time in my working life.

So if you don’t have the funds to hire a cleaning company for your office, put it on your list as it can make your working environment just a little better and maybe make you and your employees more efficient and productive.

Also check out this handy infographic I found, courtesy of Lamar Cleaning Services

The Green Movement is going strong in Canada.

Canada is one of the forward thinkers when it comes to green energy and conservation.  They’ve instituted recycling and composting programs that are still years away from happening for most of America.

Even private sector energy companies are making efforts encourage energy conservation.  Energy companies like Power Stream in Ontario offer businesses subsidies to converting their high power halogen lighting to more energy efficient florescent and LED lighting systems.

And big energy companies aren’t the only ones encouraging you to go green.  Traditional companies like Mortgages.ca, a Canadian mortgage company, offer “SMART” thermostats to their customers as a gift and incentive to use less energy.

If you’re looking for a career in the growing green industry, Canada has a green sector that is growing faster than the pace of most traditional industries.  Take a look at the infographic from Talent Egg below to see how a green career might be a great opportunity for you in Canada.

Moving your business overseas can be tremendously beneficial, but it is also significantly more complex than just hiring a truck to move across town, especially if you want to do so in an eco-conscious way.

There are a myriad of reasons why you might want to move your business overseas, from tax exemptions, to deferment, to the simple desire to live and work abroad.

Though there is quite a bit of buzz, and a good deal of misconception, about offshore business and tax evasion, the reality is that there are a number of absolutely legitimate ways to structure businesses abroad that are not about hiding money from the US government, but that are about realizing significant, honest benefits when it comes to asset protection and taxes.

But I digress. This article is about making that move and doing it in the most cost effective way possible, both for your own bottom line and for that of the environment.

The reality is that while you may want to ship some office equipment and furniture to your new destination overseas, much of what you currently have will need to be re-purposed, sold, gifted to those in need or, worse case scenario, disposed of in the United States and replaced abroad.

Generally, office desks, cubicle systems, executive furnishings like desks or wall units, reception-area desks and furnishings, conference room tables, kitchen appliances and cabinetry units are all furnishings that don’t transfer well to new spaces overseas. These types of furnishings usually just won’t fit at the new space without alterations, because office cubicles, desk systems and cabinetry are typically custom- fitted for the office spaces they were originally intended for.

Those kinds of modifications are much more difficult to accomplish abroad since the company that made them may not have service providers, or suppliers, outside of the United States. If they do, they may only be found in industrialized countries and, more often than not, expatriate moves, for a number of reasons, tend toward areas that are still growing.

Nevertheless, office chairs, small filing units, computers, printers, copiers and other equipment can be used pretty much anywhere, and it may be beneficial to ship them rather than purchase them new abroad for a couple of reasons:

• The “cost benefit” is that many times shipping is far less expensive than the cost of replacement, when you take into account high import taxes on electronics and office furniture in many countries outside the US, where the mark-up after taxes and retail sometimes exceeds 100%.

• The “green benefit” is simply to avoid adding still more to the already existing 3.5 million tons (approximately) of surplus office furniture that gets disposed of each year, and ultimately ends up in our landfills.

Preparation for your move will take some time and consideration, but is easy and your shipping company can help you with both international and domestic transfers of office supplies, furniture and equipment.

1. Do a complete inventory of your company’s office assets
2.  Sort everything into categories:

• Items that are eligible for resale on the secondary market, which can help to alleviate some of your moving costs.
• Items that can be shipped for continued use in the new space overseas, which will help save re-furnishing costs and reduce your organization’s ecological footprint.
• Items that should be donated to non-profit organizations or those in need, which can have a positive effect on public relations as well as produce tax benefits and reduce impact on our local landfills.
• Items that can be turned in for recycling, again reducing impact and producing tax benefits.
• Items that must be sent to the landfill.

1. Schedule your moving company to ship items overseas that are marked for the new office, and to ship donations locally or nationally to their recipients.

Author byline

Einat Mazafi is the owner of NYShipping, an International Shipping and moving company based in New York. She is also a specialist in providing the best relocation solutions to clients worldwide.

Even in these modern days, it can seem like green energy is still a long ways off. While we do have several wind farms, solar power, and several similar options, people are constantly shouting that these options just don’t give enough power to make up for our current usage. Lately, however, the idea of Waste to Energy has been gaining a lot more traction in the modern eye. Some are still left wondering, however, just what Waste to Energy is.

How It Works

Waste to Energy works, at its most basic level, in a similar method to coal burning. Material is burned in a closed environment to heat up water in enormous boilers. This water boils and lets off steam which is siphoned off to spin turbines. In some cases, the steam is used directly instead of spinning turbines, but this is extremely rare. The turbines then produce electricity which goes into the power grid as normal. The only real difference between a coal burning plant and a waste to energy plant is its fuel source. While a coal plant burns coal, hence the name, a waste to energy plant instead burns organic waste. This single fact leads to a huge benefit for the environment.

What Makes It Better?

While coal plants require a mineral that we have a limited amount of to be ripped out of the earth and then shipped all over to function, waste to energy plants can run just fine set right next to any waste collection center. In theory, they could even be set next to landfills if your goal was to slowly start removing the waste from them. If enough waste to energy plants are set up with agreements from waste disposal groups, it could mean an enormous drop in the amount of waste that goes into landfills in the first place. After the waste is burned, all that’s left behind is ash. Specifically, about 1/5th of the waste would remain as ash. This ash is also sifted through to find any metal or other recyclable materials so that they don’t end up in a landfill. In a situation where the material that’s burned is completely organic, the ash can also be used as an input for things such as organic fertilizer. Of course, the benefit of slowly removing waste from landfills and decreasing their size is another one that definitely bears mention. After all, why simply slow a landfill’s growth if you can actually reverse said growth at the same time?

Are There Any Downsides?

There is one noticeable downside, but it’s not as large as you might initially think. Coal, as the easiest example, produces 2000 kwh (kilowatt hours) of energy for every metric ton of coal that’s burned. On the other side of things, waste to energy only produces 500 kwh for every ton of burned waste. This might seem like an enormous problem at first, but there’s two things to consider. One is that at least part of the extra energy from coal comes from the fact that it burns for so long by comparison to organic waste. That could be offset simply by burning waste more frequently, leading to less waste going into landfills overall. The other thing that could offset it is simply building a few more waste to energy plants than coal plants. That’s basically the only downside to using waste to energy over coal and, as you can see, it’s one that’s easily handled.

Derek is blogging for GoProWaste, a north New Jersey green dumpster rental company. He enjoys blogging about green energy, waste solutions, and biodegradable waste information.