How to Choose Eco-Friendly School Supplies

Starting when children are young, they should learn how to conserve and protect our environment. One way to start is to teach them the importance of buying eco-friendly products. When they start young, they continue doing it into adulthood. School supplies could total up to be a good collection of waste considering that the majority of it is paper. Instead of buying regular supplies, consider buying those that are eco-friendly.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Choose recycled notebooks over regular notebooks. Many schools are opting for choosing eco-friendly paper, however, many students are told to bring their own notebooks to school. You are sure to find an eco-friendly notebook to match your child’s personality. Instead of the notebooks being made from trees that were cut down, the notebooks are made from post-consumer waste.

2. Look for pencils that are made solely from recycled materials.

3. Forget about the paper brown bags and invest in a reusable lunch bag. A paper bag will end up getting thrown out after the child is done with their lunch. A reusable bag will be able to be packed up and taken home for the next day. They’re also a good investment as they will be worth the cost over the paper bags, not to mention that they can easily be washed.

4. Instead of buying juice boxes, but a bottle of juice and fill up a water bottle. Individual juice boxes get tossed out at the end of the meal and accumulate a lot of waste. A water bottle can easily be filled up and rewashed.

5. Buy a staple free stapler instead of a regular one. Think about how many staples that your child could go through in a week, even if it’s by using the teacher’s stapler. Instead, choose a staple free stapler which works by folding or stitching the corner of the papers together.

Tips & Warnings

• When you give your child eco-friendly school supplies, it’s also a good opportunity to explain to your child the importance of not wasting products. For example, you could explain that after one squiggle, the entire sheet of paper doesn’t need to be thrown out. Also, a pencil doesn’t continually need to be sharpened, as even a small point can still do the job of writing.
• Make sure that you look closely at the details of what makes the product eco-friendly. It may say it on the package, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the most eco-friendly product that you could buy. A better one may be sitting right next to it.