Go Green Back to School!
Send junior to school in eco-friendly style. Avoid backpacks made of nylon or new plastics, especially PVC (vinyl), and look instead for bags made from recycled materials or natural materials, such as hemp.
Rawganique and EcoBodyWear feature different hemp styles, while Simple Shoes offers bags with eco-friendly features such as recycled PET straps and coconut buttons (the Combover style is shown here). Their supercute Blottoe hemp messenger bag falls into Simple Shoes’ Best category, which is their most sustainable line. Recycled rubber is another option. If your kid is into alternative forms of energy (whose isn’t?), Voltaic’s groovy solar-powered backpack is the way to go.
Notebooks
Kids can help reduce the burden on trees by using recycled paper made from post-consumer waste, the market for which prevents used paper from going into the landfill. The higher the recycled content the better. And encourage kiddies to use up an entire notebook before moving on to the next one!
OfficeMax, Office Depot, and Staples all offer notebooks made from recycled paper. The Green Office is another source for notebooks made from 100 percent post-consumer waste. Britain-based Sukiemakes Rescued Paper notebooks from — you guessed it — rescued paper. And EcoJot (pictured) creates stylin’ notebooks from 100 percent post-consumer waste and vegetable-based dyes.
Printer Paper
Unless your student is turning in her résumé, kids should use printer and copy paper made with recycled content. The big office stores have various recycled content options from different brands. Green Earth Office Supply offers a Tree Friendly Recycled Paper sampler, which includes “tree-free” paper, made out of materials such as hemp and recycled maps. Little kids might be intrigued by elephant dung paper.
Adapted from www.thedailygreen.com.
