Out of the Norm

Throughout the course of a day there are a lot of things that jump out at me that say "that would save money, energy and time." I notice these things not just because they are there, but because I see our department slowly being crushed by the onslaught of ever increasing budgetary constraints. These cuts will be apparent in the buildings we service. I've spoken before about my concerns over this issue and have shared some ideas on ways to conserve or stretch the money we have. (See the posts Saving Fuel, Minimizing Our Carbon Footprint, and Helping the Environment and The End is Nigh ) Here's a few more ideas.

Restrooms are one of the biggest areas wherein you will find money literally going down the drain. Water usage in sinks, toilets and urinals. Paper towel and toilet paper consumption. The cost of more powerful disinfectants to keep these rooms sanitized and healthy. All of these add to the cost of running and maintaining a school. What can we do? How about installing hand dryers? There are models that only come on when you place your hands underneath them. That not only saves a tremendous amount of money on paper towels, which by the way is a huge percentage of the budget, but also creates less waste, saves the environment and is a boon for better health. What about installing waterless urinals? Other school districts and government buildings are already using them. Think of how many thousands of gallons of water would be saved each year alone! Installation of automatic faucets would also save money. Although we are currently using faucets that shut off automatically after a few seconds, motion sensor faucets would save even more by only coming on when hands are placed underneath them. Unfortunately, there's no way around the use of toilet paper unless we install a bidet in every bathroom stall!

I could go on and on about energy efficient and money-saving tactics, but suffice it to say that there are ways to save and we need to begin implementing these sooner rather than later. Consideration of our diminishing budgets behooves all of us to do our part in creating unique and imaginative ways to minimize waste and maximize efficiency!