Our Portland office is now Recycle at Work Certified. The City has a program where it encourages businesses to take steps towards better recycling, and then recognizes businesses with this certification. Here are the steps:
Step 1: Identify your champion. That just means there should be an assigned recycling advocate for the office. For our office, that would be me.
Step 2: Recycle all paper bottles and cans. This sounds easy, but the tricky part is to have EVERYONE in your office do it.
Step 3: Make recycling easy. Having recycling bins right next to garbage cans will motivate everyone to ask “can I recycle this?” before throwing it in the trash. Clear signage is also important.
Step 4: Train your team. Education is a big part of abundant and proper recycling. Everyone in the office should know what can and can’t be recycled.
Step 5: Throw away less. Use less stuff. Use reusable stuff.
The program has made it easy for business to follow the right steps, and get help when they need it. You should get certified, too!
June and July are the rainy months in Japan. The heavy humidity and stagnant heat are downright oppressive. Combine that with sweaty people in crowded places and you have Tokyo.
I just got back from spending three weeks there, seeing family and drinking cold beverages. That’s one thing that really made an impression during this trip: the cultural desire for food and drinks to be cold, or just to seem colder, than the weather outside. During the rainy season, and all throughout summer, Japanese cuisine is focused on cooling. Cold noodles, ice cold beer. Fragrant herbs, spices, and vinegars are used in abundance, because it’s believed that it clears your senses and makes you feel cooler.
- udon lunch set with ice cold beer
Ice cream is sold absolutely everywhere, with a large, 3D soft-service ice cream sign outside the stores. Nico (our two year old) fully took advantage of this visual reminder to consume as many ice cream cones as possible.
- mmm ice cream
- mmm more ice cream
