Back to School - Green

It's back to school time for the kids and the average family is expected to spend approximately $606 in back to school supplies this year. Additionally, the Oregon Resource Efficiency Program estimates that each of the 75.5 million students who attend school will produce up to 240 pounds of waste – or a total of 18.1 billion pounds of waste!

Parents and teachers can pick up those supplies, save money and be green through eco-friendly school supplies by saying yes to plant-based and recycled supplies and avoiding the cute, colorful, unrecyclable single use items. Watch the packaging purchases come in and have fun planning the new school year ahead. Yay, hemp backpacks! Compostable at end of live and a renewable material.

A brief guideline for purchasing school supplies:

Yeah!

Recycled paper, refillable pens, tree-free pencils, and scissors made from recycled steel

Cardboard covered notebooks

Water-based paints

White glue or paste

Vegetable or plant-based dyes

Nay!

Glossy paper, disposable pens, magic markers, and artists’ pastel crayons

Plastic folders and notebooks

Acrylic paints and scented art products

Epoxy or instant bonding glues

Fiber reactive or commercial dyes

Other helpful impacts you can make:

Reuse last year’s backpack and pencil cases if they are still good. No need for a brand new everything. For what you do need to purchase, check to see if your state has a sales-tax holiday and do your back-to-school shopping then. 20 states have a sales-tax holiday. For example, Illinois’ sales-tax holiday this week cuts sales tax from 9.75% to 4.5%.

Check out the new green lunch containers that eliminate sandwich wrap and throw away utensils. Return to refillable thermoses and lunch boxes.

Walk the talk, bike, take the local bus or share car when shopping You can not only reduce your carbon footprint but you can also potentially reduce the amount of tax you pay.

Ask teachers for non-paper assignments. This can save about 38 tons of paper waste each year, which translates to roughly 644 trees. If paperless is not an option recycling those assignments is the next best option. For every ton of paper recycled, 17 trees are saved.

Alright, let’s get to school.