Young Professionals Committee helps BWFH go green

Every day, office supplies—including paper, toner, binders, staples and more—sit unused in offices across our organization. Recently, Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s Young Professionals Committee gave staff the opportunity to reduce, reuse and recycle those products with their Office Supply Swap.

“We followed a model we’ve used for several years now and it worked really well,” says Young Professionals Committee Co-Chair and Community Health Program Manager Katie Plante. “We asked staff to drop off any and all unused office supplies that were cluttering their space. Then we invited staff to take whatever they wanted from the donated items. Anything left over was properly recycled or donated to the JP Manning Elementary School.”

Plante says they collected everything from desk and wall organizers to folders, binder clips, paperclips, pens, stickers, labels and more—most of which was eagerly snapped up by “shoppers.” In the end, all that went unclaimed was toner, which was recycled through Staples. “I like to think of it as spring cleaning,” says Plante. “It’s a great opportunity to clean out your space, but it’s also a chance for colleagues to stock up on the products they use every day without impacting their budget.”