Adjust the rules for using an office fridge to also help the nature

The most fought upon common space in the office. A center for conflicts but also a big opportunity for a more eco-friendly office. Office fridge. How to take care of it in the most efficient way?

Save space and throw out often

If you’d have to pick one rule for the office fridge it would be to save space. Murphy’s law says that a fridge is always a tad smaller than it ought to be and so it’s a good idea to push people to stack their food on top of each other if at all possible.

Your position as a manager gives you an even stronger tool than an appeal to employees. You can procure regular fridge disposal to get rid of the old food. It’s almost a certainty for someone to forget their lunch in the fridge and refuse to admit it afterward. For this reason, it’s quite useful to have a regular date  (E.g. Friday) when everything is thrown own out that doesn’t have a declared ownership.

Clean

Besides regular disposal, there’s another tool in your arsenal - how often will you clean it. One thing is a basic shelf-cleaning, ideally once a week. You shouldn’t neglect the deep clean either. Clean the creases of isolation, the moist places, and don’t forget to defrost when necessary. Overly frosted fridge consumes more energy hurting not only your firm but also the nature.  

Establish a system

Messiness is often a result of the absence of order, a system to a way of things should be organized and this applies to your office fridge as well. Preventive measure to spare the need for disposal of food week by week is an introduction of a practical system.

What we mean by that is dividing the fridge into zones, which results not only in a more organized fridge but also helps with the cleaning. In extreme cases, you can also stick a written note on the door of the fridge urging employees to tidiness. Though in this case applies, as we wrote a couple of months ago, that you shouldn’t go down this road unless all the other attempts have failed.