Many of us spend as much (or more) time at work as we do in bed; as such, we think having a healthy, comfortable, sustainable workplace is as important as where you lay your head at night. For those of us who work in an office, here are some quick picks for creating a green office (and check out How to Green Your Work for more ideas and resources).
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1) If you have papers to file, pencils to hold and a telephone to answer, you likely have a desk, too; we like Knú series of desks for an ultra-modern, sustainable center to work. If you're looking for a more simple spot to work, check out Legare's furniture that doesn't require tools for assembly.
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2) Once you have a desk of your liking picked out, you'll need a place to sit; we've seen a whole bunch that are pretty good when it comes to green comfort, but it's tough to beat Steelcase's Think chair or the Zody chair by Haworth when it comes to ergonomics and lifecycle design principles.
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3) The Mix Lamp from Luceplan is a stylish integration of LED lighting for the work space. Delivering “an intense warm and pleasing light,” the Mix has a 50,000 hour life, and its LED Chip on Board technology only drinks up 5 watts of power. White light not for you? The color of light can also be changed with an integrated filter. The remaining two picks are after the jump...
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4) To keep control of your work climate, check out Herman Miller's C2, which acts as an air filter, uses only 1.5 amps of power, yet can allow users to adjust the surrounding temperature up to a 40 degree increase, and an 8 degree decrease. Ahh....
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5) Lastly, once you're ready to work green, but need some printer cartridges, recycled office paper and rechargeable batteries for your calculator, click on over to The Green Office, who has just about everything you'll need when it comes to green office supplies; they also offer an office footprint calculator, sustainability calculator and a database of recyclers.
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For #4, amps mean nothing if you don't know the voltage.
Related to the comment above, amps measures current, not power. BUT, if we assume the 1.5A rating is for the US, where standard wall voltage is 120V, the power (using P = IV) is 180W, hardly a green device.
Yes, I realize that the wall voltage is sinusoidal, so I actually have to take the integral of the product I*V*phase over a single cycle to estimate the average power, but the 180W is a good, quick, back of the envelope calculation since for household appliances, the phase angle is effectively 1.
I think it's important to remember that going green doesn't mean buying more "green products". They have a smaller environmental impact and are good when you need new furniture or lamps, etc. But to be truly green you need to make what you have last as long as possible rather than tossing it into a landfill to get another "green" product.
At the risk of sounding as pedantic as Charles Simpson, above, you can estimate "average" power all you want. Since 120 VAC is the RMS line voltage, the sinusoidal RMS power is 180 watts. This is the DC equivalent power.
And when you decree this is not a "green" device, I assume what you really mean is that you think it's not efficient. But not efficient, compared to what, exactly? What other Peltier effect device are you comparing it to, which can decrease surrounding air temperature by 8 deg F, for 180 W power consumption? I'm guessing none.
"Green" has become just another absolutist weasel-word which appears to mean, "I approve of this". Anything "not green", from what I gather, basically means anything which sinfully might make the world slightly less miserable, and is therefore decadent and to be shunned in true Amish fashion.
We use a ton of their products in our office, one of my favorites being the "rebinder". I can certainly attest to their durability and quality. I was going to list off a few other ideas that my co-workers currently partake in, but I found this wonderful list on the green office blog:
http://www.thegreenoffice.com/blog/
Enjoy!
-Rachel De Dora, of the Eat Well Guide
(www.eatwellguide.org)
**Author's comments**
Thanks, Rachel; that reminds me that we mentioned ReBinder back in 2005. Good stuff!
-CD