I started to think on Earth Day about what we do for sustainability in our offices. Part of this comes from reading a friend’s book, “Your Mother Called (Mother Earth)…You’d better call her back!” Gina Murphy-Darling is known as “Mrs. Green” here in Tucson and around the country. She has an Internet-based radio show every week which can be found on Mrs. Green’s World. Gina is an energetic power house who encourages me to think about how I, my family, and my businesses are impacting Mother Earth.
We used to send batteries back to Starkey years ago with a take-back program that has since stopped. We still collect batteries and bring them to our local waste facility or Home Depot. We carry rechargeable battery options with hearing aids and add the recycled bag provided with all of the hearing aid fittings. We have excellent recycling pickup at home, but not commercially. An area I would like to improve upon is how my office recycles.
I am currently switching lights to LED now that they have become bright enough for the office. I really never liked fluorescent lighting, mainly because I am not very patient and fluorescent bulbs take a long time to brighten up! I am much happier with the LED,
I try to get my staff a gift once a month, something small but thoughtful. What’s “green” about this?” Well, I work very hard to go to local establishments. This is true also when I have to travel, because I want the local flavor. It has become very important to me to support our local economy, partly because I want the people doing business with my offices to be aware how they are helping us LOCALLY.
Since my outlook is private practice and I am not associated with many buying groups (I do a few small ones, but none of my HA sales), I want my staff and the community we serve to benefit from my business.
Here is the link for “Your Mother Called.” There are many other suggestions that Gina makes in this low-key but very interesting book. What else do you do in your place of work to make it “Greener”?
Judy:
Thanks for an interesting article. I can’t wait for the hearing industry to transition to fully recyclable rechargeable batteries. As noted in a recent article on this site by Chris Schweitzer, we currently send 1.5B hearing aid batteries to landfills every year. The VA alone recently reported they use 78m hearing aid batteries annually—all ending up in landfills. Yet, MarkeTrak9 (see Wayne’s article) found that rechargeable hearing aids and batteries are among the leading requests of our patients.
I’m excited about the new ZPower Rechargeable System that uses a fully recyclable silver zinc battery. One battery takes the place of 100 zinc air. This, certainly, is a move in the right environmental direction for our profession and industry.
Thanks for beginning an important discussion.
Barry
Thank you Barry!