Hey Parents…September is right around the corner and the time has come for back-to-school shopping! Take this year as an opportunity to green your back-to-school shopping and teach your kids the importance of recycling and using environmentally friendly products.

 

1. Make a list before you shop – Instead of buying all new supplies, take a look around the house and make sure that you don’t have anything from the year before that could be reused. 
2. Buy necessities, not gimmicks – Stick to buying the must haves and what is on the school supply lists provided by teachers.
3. Buy in bulk – When getting supplies, buy in larger amounts to cut down on the amount of packaging used as well as limiting the number of trips to the store for more pens which cuts back on pollution as well.
4. Look for products made of recycled or eco-friendly materials –Eco-conscious items are available in many stores, or you can look online for companies that offer green school supplies.

-          Smencils offers pens and pencils made of recycled materials, TreeSmart is another great option

-          Stores like Staples offers notebooks with paper made of sugarcane, New Leaf Paper is another green distributor to check out this fall

1. Be green for school lunch - Get your kids a reusable cloth or metal lunchbox. Many plastic lunchboxes may contain PVC or BPA, two chemicals that are toxic and harmful to our and your children’s health.

-          Citizenpip is a fun company that offers fun chemical-free lunchboxes that even come with color-coordinated accessories.

-          Laptop lunches also offers metal lunch boxes with partitions perfect for the picky eater!

1. Need a new backpack? – Backpacks are usually made from manmade fibers and plastics, that are harmful to the environment. 

-          This year go for the green options like the PETE backpack which is made from recycled plastic.

-          Another sustainable and cute option for kids comes from Beatrix.

 For more reading…

http://ecohearth.com/eco-zine/kids-and-family/834-the-green-abcs-a-sustainable-back-to-school-guide.html  
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5704436/sustainable_backtoschool_supplies_pg2.html?cat=25   
http://www.besafenet.com/pvc/documents/Back%20to%20School%20Guide%20to%20PVC%20Free%20School%20Supplies.
 http://www.theultimategreenstore.com/s-224-bags-backpacks.aspx
http://www.ehow.com/how_4495492_choose-school-supplies.html

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 30th, 2011 at 11:08 am and is filed under Back to School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.