Back-to-school shopping doesn't have to be an exercise in conspicuously ungreen consumption. Eco-friendly school supplies made of recycled and organic materials are easier than ever to find. One great place to start shopping is TheGreenOffice.com. And the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice has a handy back-to-school shopping guide that helps you avoid products containing polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a nasty type of plastic.
To give you just a taste of what's out there, we've rounded up a few fun, green products:
Notebooks
Ecojot's happy, whimsical creations use 100 percent postconsumer recycled paper, as do NewLeaf's notebooks. DolphinBlue's notepads are chlorine-free in addition to using all postconsumer recycled paper, and Ampad has recycled, chlorine-free binder paper, available from Staples.com. Or you could go "treeless" with EcoPaper's chlorine-free notebooks made from banana paper.
Pencils
Paper Mate's Earthwrite pencils made from reclaimed wood are the write stuff. Or try Zebra's recycled mechanical pencils, which reuse material from car headlights, CDs, and plastic shopping bags. Plus, mechanical pencils can be refilled instead of landfilled.
Pens
Goodkind Woody pens are some of the most sustainable out there. Made of recycled wood scraps from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, they contain nontoxic ink and brass ink cartridges with at least 30 percent postconsumer recycled material -- and they're refillable. Pilot's BeGreen pens are also refillable and contain up to 89 percent recycled material.
Laptop computers
Like the idea of a green screen? Check out the Green Electronics Council's online ranking system, which evaluates computers on criteria such as energy conservation, packaging, and elimination of hazardous materials. "Gold" rated laptops include the 13.3-inch Lenovo Thinkpad X300, praised on MetaEfficient's 2008 list of green notebook computers for its energy efficiency and 90 percent recyclable packaging, as well as the Toshiba Portégé R500, commended for its ultra-low voltage processor. Dell has gotten a lot of buzz for announcing that it's carbon neutral and aiming to be "the greenest technology company on Earth," and Dell Precision and Latitude models also make the "gold" ranking. If a green Apple sounds a-peeling, the MacBook Air is mercury- and arsenic-free and gets the "silver" stamp from the Green Electronics Council (and a gold ranking in geek excitement, for what that's worth). Whichever computer you choose, turn it off every night; using a power strip can make that easier.
Backpacks and messenger bags
If recycling is your bag, Vy&Elle make backpacks out of discarded movie billboards, and Simple's Hangover bag combines recycled plastic toggles and organic cotton. Recycled plastic sacks get hip new life in Conserve's laptop bag, and recycled tires look deceptively like leather in a messenger bag by Passchal. PVC-free backpacks include Timbuk2's hemp/PET fabric bag, the People Pak from Fleurville (for younger kids), and Patagonia's sleek Beeline and Pocketwire Pack bags, made from 47 and 64 percent recycled doubleweave polyester, respectively. Want to use the sun to power your phone? Noon Solar offers swanky, biodegradable solar panel bags and purses, or Reware's solar Juice Bags are a more affordable, brightly colored option.
Clothes
For teens and college students, eurochic retailer H&M has some affordable organic cotton pieces (and all of its clothes are PVC-free), and Target has organic T-shirts and polos. Garden Kids' clothing for children is organic cotton, and the company pays its workers a fair wage. Pristine Planet sells clothes for both kids and adults made by a variety of greenish companies, and tells you whether particular items are vegan, organic, fair-trade, and/or sweatshop-free. Maggie's Functional Organics -- which has shirts for adults and socks and tights for kids -- goes even further, using certified-organic cotton and wool, minimizing packaging, and following a fair-trade business model.
Shoes
New Balance sneakers are PVC-free, and the company gets the highest rating in Co-op America's Responsible Shopper guide. Brooks' Cascadia 2 shoes are hailed as eco-friendly for skipping the petroleum and instead incorporating "green rubber." Simple's ecoSNEAKS line for kids, women, and men uses recycled materials like plastic bottles and bike tires. Zappos.com has an eco-friendly shoe section, rounding up products made from hemp, bamboo, organic cotton, or recycled polyester, or that were made in wind-powered factories.
As you go about your back-to-school prep, remember the first rule of green shopping: Ask yourself whether you really need something new at all. You may have plenty of pens, bags, and shoes already -- and what you don't have, you might be able to find in thrift stores. Buying less is always a head-of-the-classy move.
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Comments View as Flat
wkc Posted 7:00 am
21 Aug 2008
Funny, ForestEthics Back2School says different...
Today ForestEthics happened to release a Back to School pencil report card which gave those Earthwrite Pencils a grade of "C", while two other products got A's, and two big pencil companies got F's.
It's on the front page of www.forestethics.org right now.
The companies were graded on the amount of pre- and post-consumer recycled content (though pre-consumer content is kind of lame-- just because it's leftover scraps from making something else doesn't mean that it's not clearcut BS), FSC certification, and links to the notorious Sierra Pacific Industries.
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beanster Posted 9:55 am
27 Aug 2008
messenger bag
another good messenger bag is from herobags.com a small start up in uber green SF. Its made from post waste recycled cotton, sits well on the body and is simple but comfy. I love mine. they also make nice grocery bags too. there squareat the bottom and wash well.
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3kids2dogs2cats Posted 12:28 am
28 Aug 2008
buying our way out of a crisis
Every year families - and I am one of them - spend hundreds on sending their kids back to school. Clothes, books, school supplies. And I see articles such as this one and I get upset, because I want to be responsible but I can't afford to buy all of these green back to school items for my kids. I am also so opposed to this idea that buying all of these green products is a solution to our environmental crisis. We need to consume less and do with less. I would much rather see information on where I can find good used stuff, or maybe a school supplies buying co-op, or maybe a way to trade school supplies? I don't know, but something more sustainable, than buying more stuff that is really expensive!
It is hard when faced with the option of buying cheap foreign-made supplies at places like Target, that are within my budget or spending lots more on green options. I would rather buy another rain barrel than all of these expensive green school supplies, but then I am stuck with buying things from Target and creating a demand for cheap Target type products that are bad for teh environment and I know are not good. So are there other answers to this dilema? Sorry I have rambled.
This year I went back through all of my daughters essay books and spiral notebooks and pulled out all of the used pages, and I am having her reuse them until all of the paper is used. But soon I will have to buy new ones because there is not enough left over.
I would love any ideas about how to address this problem!
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reduceit Posted 11:25 am
12 Sep 2008
more products with a "green" color
I agree with you, 3kids2dogs2cats!
How can buying more products be a solution to saving the environment?
If we take a closer look at these green products, we'd find that these companies have created a new market by consuming waste from mainstream industries for turing them into green products. While this is all good in terms of re-using the waste that'd normally reach the landfill, the process has legitimized the waste that is generated in the first place.
Moreover, as noted by 3kids2dogs2cats, the green products are more expensive than the supermarket ones.
How do we consume sustainably then?
I am of the opinion that by buying more green products we are not doing much in terms of sustainability. Sustainability comes from reducing consumption.
Don't buy that laptop bag, if you can carry that comfortably in your backpack. Don't buy those PVC-free sneakers, if you already have enough sneakers to wear. We should stop trying to reduce our guilt by consuming these green products; we are only creating more junk. Instead, we should endeavor to incrementally reduce consumption, wherever we can.
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