How Green Is Your Back to School Bag?

Fall and cooler weather (finally!) are not the only things around the corner, the spiraling down of August means one thing…back to school (if you listen carefully you can hear the school bells already chiming in the distance). One supply that students of every age are required is paper and a ton of it! According to the EPA, the average American uses about the equivalent of one 100-foot-tall Douglas fir tree in paper and wood products each year.

Aside from destruction of our world’s forests, it takes a lot of water and energy to produce a piece of paper. Many paper-producing companies are switching to greener energy practices, but according to US Energy Information Adminstrationfigures, the pulp and paper industry is the fourth largest industrial emitter of greenhouse gases.  Not to mention, their industry has the third largest user of industrial water.  Many toxic chemicals including chlorine are used to bleach and delignify wood pulp and often end up contaminating rivers and sediment.

To produce one sheet of paper it takes 3 gallons of water, so that means it takes 210 gallons of water to make the notebook that is currently on my desk! That is just a one subject notebook, every year right before school my dad would bring home at least ten one subject notebooks (he was a sucker for the sales), that’s 2,100 gallons for one school year!

Creating a ton of paper from recycled paper uses half the amount of water and saves up to 17 trees than creating paper from virgin pulp, states the  Energy Information. There are a lot more companies that offer products using recycled paper, chlorine-free paper, or paper made from sustainable harvested forests (be on the lookout for the Forest Stewardship Council symbol).

Have a lot of papers lying around and you still have too much after reusing it as scrap paper? Making your own paper is not a daunting task; it can be a great, creative activity for the whole family. It only takes a few household items and a few minutes! Besides, who wouldn’t be the coolest kid in class with their very own recycled paper notebook?

In case crafting is not your thing, companies like Ecosystem, make great notebooks out of recycled materials. Complete your eco-friendly backpack to school shopping by filling your sustainable backpack with a refillable pen, a biodegradable pencil, a PVC free binder, and of course, an apple for the teacher.