Let’s shop green without being obvious about it, OK? You can, you know. There are many ways to tweak the holiday list this year to skew it toward recycled, socially conscious, energy-conserving goods. Of course, we don’t like to advocate lots of consuming. We definitely don’t buy that theory that it’s our patriotic duty to purchase our way out of the recession.

On the other hand, we are going to exchange gifts this holiday season. With that in mind, here are a few humble suggestions for keeping it green (and affordable), subtly.

A TOASTER OVEN

Black and Decker CTO6301 Convection Toaster Oven

Mom, dad, a kid on her way to college. Lots of people can appreciate the utility and electricity savings of a Toaster Oven. Did you know that the average 1500 watts used by a toaster/convection oven is less than half, or even more, than that used by a full-size oven? How many times have you heated the entire oven just to warm rolls for dinner? Or to bake a couple ramekins of dessert? Or broil a tuna melt? Or brown a small brushetta?

Turn that big oven off, and use a tool that’s sized-right for the job. That’s the very sound idea behind this “smart” appliance. There are dozens to choose from. The Black & Decker one shown here can be had at Amazon and other stores for around $60. It gets good reviews for durability, space and function.

THE WOVEL

THe wovel uses see-saw action to shove snow.

This goofy looking simple machine just might keep some snow blowers off the road. It’s unique enough to keep the relatives marveling about the weird gift Aunt Sally got Uncle Mel, but it’s got it’s serious side: It powers through snow without using fossil fuels.  More importantly to most users, it makes the job of shoveling the white stuff, pound per pound, easier. Easier on the back, mainly, because the motion of pushing and then “throwing” the snow engages leg and arm muscles.

We don’t actually have one, and we wonder if it’s quite as easy as it looks, but the see-saw action does appear to take a load off the back, a victory over bending, raising and twisting to shovel snow the old-fashioned way. The Wovel has made several YouTube appearances since being named on Time’s Best Inventions List in 2006. Check out this video by a convinced user.

It is expensive for a shovel ($119.95 retail), but it solves a problem, without adding another pollution-spewing machine to the household arsenal.

RECYCLED TIRE WALLET

Recycled Tire Wallet made by artisans in El Salvador

Number three on our list is black, but so very green. This completely recycled, vegan friendly wallet is made from discarded tires. But it looks so much like the standard leather version we thought it would qualify as a green gift that doesn’t stand out as different. Each 9 x 3.5 inch wallet has a slot for money and six slots for credit cards, just like you’d expect. A Fair Trade artisan group in El Salvador makes these wallets, helping provide jobs and living wages in their community. You can buy it ($30)  through the GreenHeartShop in Chicago, at their online store.

Green Heart helps promote artisan craft goods, clothing and food from around the world and in the U.S.

As the Nobel Prize Committee noted in awarding President Obama with the Nobel Peace Prize last week, the world is in a better place than it was a year ago.

The world also is in a better place thanks to six young people who are being honored on Tuesday for their heroic environmental efforts. The 2009 Brower Youth Awards, sponsored by Earth Island Institute, will be given to:

• Sierra Crane-Murdoch, 21, of Vermont, for helping unite the movement to fight coal.

• Adarsha Shivakumar, 16, of California, who has put into place a biofuel solution in rural India.

• Diana Lopez, 20, of Texas, who started an organic food source in San Antonio.

• Hai Vo, 22, of California, for transforming food purchasing at the University of California.

• Robin Bryan, 21, of Manitoba, whose project protects 1 million acres of forest in Canada from industrial logging.

• Alec Loorz, 15, of California, who initiated Kids vs. Global Warming and is the youngest presenter of Al Gore’s “The Climate Project.”

Each award recipient will receive a $3,000 cash prize and be recognized at 10th annual Brower Youth Awards Gala in San Francisco. The Earth Island Institute, which sponsors the Brower Youth Awards, is a nonprofit group that recognizes people who come up with solutions to protect the planet.

Sierra Crane-Murdoch

The common thread that connects the six winners is their youthful idealism and  shared passion. As Sierra Crane-Murdoch said via e-mail, “It’s our idealism that energizes our ideas, and it’s comaraderie that makes our ideas succeed.”

Crane-Murdoch says she became an organizer when she arrived at Middlebury College and joined an environmental forum called The Sunday Night Group.

“I’ve always loved the outdoors,” she says, “but I actually started to really care about the environment when I began to understand the human component…and realized that climate change is affecting disadvantaged communities that haven’t caused the problem in the first place.”

Her work with the Sunday Night Group led to Step It Up and 350.org, founded by Middlebury professor and environmentalist Bill McKibben, which she includes among her many mentors. She says that environmental organizing was considered their “5th class” at Middlebury, but “when Power Past Coal came along, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to commit entirely to the project and take classes.”

So Crane-Murdoch took a leave of absence to go live in the Coal River Valley of West Virginia and learn about the issues of dirty coal. She now has one more semester at Middlebury, after which she plans to return temporarily to Appalachia. She is a 2009 Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, which is directed by McKibben. Currently she is reporting on former union coal miners who are standing up to mountaintop removal coal mining.

Adarsha Shivakumar

Two years ago, at the age of 13, Adarsha Shivakumar of Pleasant Hill, Calif., co-founded Project Jatropha. The organization promotes the plant, Jatropha curcas, a small perennial shrub with oil-rich seeds. Shivakumar says the plant can grow on marginal lands without diverting valuable land from food production. It’s considered an ecologically friendly and economically profitable crop for the farmers of rural India.

Shivakumar says every year he and his sister spend time with their grandparents who live on a farm in south India. “During that time,” he says, “we regularly visit the nearby villages…to see the work done by Parivarthana, a non-governmental farmers aid organization.” Many of the villagers grow tobacco for a living, but to do this the farmers must burn large amounts of firewood to cure the tobacco leaves. Because the farmers do not have a lot of wood on their land, they have turned to cutting down the trees of the local national park.

“My sister and I realized that if we do not make an effort to wean the farmers off tobacco, then the whole forest and all of its incredible biodiversity would disappear,” Shivakumar says.

Shivakumar’s group collaborated with Parivarthana and a plant biotechnology company, Labland Biotechs, to convince farmers that Jatropha seeds could be converted into biofuel.

“Carbon dioxide emissions are local,” says Shivakumar, “but their effects are global.” Though the project is based in India, he hopes it will influence others to help curb global warming and decrease dependence on fossil fuels.

Diana Lopez of San Antonio got excited about social justice and the environment after one of her high school teachers introduced the class to the Southwest Workers Union. The union had a youth chapter that focused on living wages, youth organizing, environmental justice and border global organizing.

It was inevitable that eventually someone would bring together all those new waterless car wash products with all those kids holding car wash fundraisers.

Green Youth Movement members

One such partnership takes off tomorrow in LA, where teen members of the nonprofit Green Youth Movement will hold a car wash at the Barrington Dog Park in Brentwood.

The group, lead by GYM founder Ally Maize, hopes to make a statement about water conservation, and several of her classmates from the Archer School for Girls, will be raising funds for their senior class activities.

The car wash on Saturday (Oct. 17) will use an eco-friendly formula, called Eco Detail, a plant-derived polymer compound.

The times for the car wash, and the cost per car, were not immediately available.

Planning a low-impact, money-saving Halloween is so much more rewarding than trying to turn some other holidays green. You don’t have to argue with relatives about whether or not to have a turkey, or disappoint the kids with gifts to humanitarian causes in their names at Christmas. All you really need to do is think creatively, get holistic about your pumpkin, maybe dust off the sewing machine and take it easy at the store.

Here are our best nine ideas to help you get started.

Halloween Chico Bag

1 - Get A Reusable Halloween Bag

This is a no-brainer, the equivalent of buying CFLs. If you can’t do this, hang up your werewolf mask right now. We like this Chico Bag. It is reusable, affordable and designed by kids. Buy it at Greenfeet for just $5. Or find a pillowcase for treats. Either way skip the clunky orange plastic pumpkins, unless you’ve already got them, then: reuse, reuse.

2 – Make Your Own Costume

Don’t sew? Keep it simple – a cape, fairy wings, a skirt or a toga can be made from remnant material or old sheets with minimal stitching. Use inexpensive, iron-on fusing tape to make seams. Cut with pinking shears so fabric won’t unravel. We won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting you use a sheet to be a ghost (duh!), but old sheets can make good costume base material. Accessorize princes and princesses with glitzy fabric leftovers from the wedding/party section of any fabric store. We once glammed up Ginny Weasley with a pastiche of recycled duds, using a red robe from two previous Harry Potters, and a moon-and-stars cape from wizards past. Capes, velvety robes and glittering trim can add a lot of drama for little sweat equity. Here are some basic instructions.

Boy Snatched by Alien (Photo: Homemade Costumes)

But… if you’re making your own, why stop there? Get creative.  Turn your kid into a child being snatched by an alien, a mom-niacal optical illusion they won’t soon forget (that’s just the kid in the photo; the alien is affixed to his back). Read details at Costume-Works.com, where veteran costume maker, Colletta, mother of six  and grandmom, showcases homemade costume submissions. There’s some amazing stuff here, from Oompa Loompas to boys dressed as both plane and pilot. (Your kid may not remember being a pirate from a package, but he’ll surely recall the day he trick-or-treated as a cardboard plane.)

3 – Hold a Costume Exchange Party

This is novel idea could work for the under-10 or over 30-crowd. Any grade-schooler whose accumulated a few dress-up outfits and costumes would probably love to trade one in for a “new” one from another kid. So share!  Make it a party by allowing participants to “buy” the costumes with coins or points earned at activities or games. You’ll be recycling and creating a fun experience.

We think this idea, now wafting around the Internet, may have taken flight at GreenHalloween.org, a website founded by Seattle mom Corey Colwell-Lipsome and her mom and partner in green adventures, Lynn Colwell. Green Halloween delivers many ideas for making spooky parties healthier and greener, like skipping the candy and serving black olive and orange bell pepper pizza. See their neighborhood Halloween kit for more.

(Photo: AllRecipes.com)

4. Make pumpkin bread

It’s yummy and healthy. Pumpkins are full of beta –carotene (present in all orange veggies) which is converted to Vitamin A. Some nutritionists consider these orange foods to be Super Foods” with properties that protect against cancer and strengthen the immune system. Another reason to celebrate the orange. Drizzle icing over it for picky eaters or serve plain and warm, a perfect fall treat for a Halloween gathering.

There’s a healthy, light recipe using buttermilk on AllRecipes.com, and another delicious pumpkin bread recipe on Cooks.com. (And countless more, but these two are not too sugary.)

Twisted Fruit snack (Photo: Clif Bar)

5. Give Trick-or-Treaters dried fruit treats...

Treats can be tough when you’re thinking green. There’s a problem from the git-go with all that individual packaging and while you may want to give something healthier, you don’t want to suck the fun out of the evening for visiting Draculas. Dried fruit is one answer. Try Clif Bar’s Twisted Fruit sticks.

Or combine dried mangos, pineapple, cantaloupe and dates into a sweet mixed-fruit goodie bag. Downside: You’d have to package it yourself, which might raise suspicions that your treat was tainted, leading to its expeditious disposal at the recipient’s home.  Hardcore greenies also might have trouble with including tropical fruit, but there are lots of local dried fruits, from apple chips to dried cantaloupe slices. available stateside.

6. …Or crackers

The University of Illinois Extension service came up with these ideas for healthier treats: Cheese and cracker packages; sugar-free gum; juice boxes; raisin or nut packages or peanuts.  We say no to the Aspartame gum, and hold those peanuts (God forbid you’d give them to a kid with a peanut allergy). The crackers sound like a plan though. Butter crackers, graham crackers. Kids love them, especially after consuming a pound of sweets.

Halloween Crackers (Photo: Martha Stewart.com)

And wait! There’s a variation. From Martha Stewart (who else) comes this idea for Halloween “crackers”, as  in those party favors that you pop open. She uses orange crepe paper and plastic spiders. No, we don’t think the world needs more plastic spiders, but these crackers do reuse toilet tissue tubes. Fill the tube with selected treats and fulfill your Martha leanings.

7.  Don’t forget popcorn

Kids with braces won’t like you, but popcorn would be a welcome departure for some wee spooks. Here’s an idea that uses a little plastic, but not so much as to violate the green spirit: Take some of those thin plastic gloves that servers wear in cafeterias and stuff them with popcorn. Paint the nails red, add some gashes or creepy tattoos; bind the glove closed with a rubber band and give a “hand out” at Halloween.

8. Decorate with compostable stuff

Straw is really great for animal bedding, but it can be used as a  garden mulch. So if you’re decorating with straw bales for fall, spread it on the flower beds afterward. Dried colored corn can be re-purposed as a winter treat for squirrels and birds. Hang a string of dried garlic on the door to ward off evil spirits on Halloween night, and doubtless you know it can be cooked with later. Cardboard can be easily turned into tombstones, and later used as a weed cover.

De-decorate by turning off all the lights except for a few candles at the door. Put on some scary music, dress like a gangster and you’ve turned your casa into a mysterious manse. (We concede it won’t give Tony Soprano nightmares, but it might hit the right note for small tricksters). Bada-bing!

Heirloom pumpkins (Photo: GreenRightNow.com)

9. Use the whole pumpkin

If they weren’t orange, pumpkins would be the ultimate green Halloween veggie — and some of them actually are green, or blue, on the outside. These heirloom pumpkins (see picture) make some of the best pumpkin foods. Carve them into jack-o-lanterns at the last minute so you can pull out the pumpkin meat for soup or a pie. Remember to roast the pumpkin seeds. We again defer to AllRecipes for directions on this.

Afterward, take the pumpkin to the compost pile. See Earth 911 for composting directions. If you don’t have a compost pile, fall’s a great time to start using leaves, grass clippings and garden dredge. It’s positively frightening how useful the resulting mulch will be come springtime.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media1 –

As you sort through which Disney character your child will be and find the candy of choice for the trick-or-treaters, think green this Halloween. From candy to pumpkins, there are many ways to make this holiday eco-friendly.

Here’s an idea for an organic treat, Yummy Earth lollipops or drops.

Invented by two dads who simply wanted a healthier alternative to candy, Yummy Earth is now the number one seller of organic candy in the United States. Available in 21 flavors, Yummy Earth offers gummy bears, gummy worms, lollipops, and candy drops. Yummy Earth is 100% USDA and EU certified organic. With no artificial coloring or high fructose corn syrup, these candies also are gluten-free, peanut-free, and tree nut-free.

So what do they put in there to still make it taste fabulous? The company uses raw organic brown sugar instead of processed sugar or artificial sweeteners. Other ingredients include, “citric acid made from Israeli sugar beets instead of genetically modified corn; bright red coloring from Japanese purple carrots instead of artificial red dye; real pomegranate extract for our Pomegranate Pucker lollipops and candy drops. Organic pumpkin and black currant also is used to create the vibrant colors,” stated Rob Wunder, Yummy Earth co-founder.

Yummy Earth is widely available at Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Whole Foods, Marriott Hotels, Amazon.com, Harry and David, Smoothie King, Sprouts, Borders Books, and other health food stores.

The Natural Candy Store also offers healthy candy alternatives. Each item is marked by symbols indicating which dietary categories it fits in with, such as vegan, organic, gluten-free, allergen-free, kosher, and the Feingold diet. This candy store also features jelly beans, sprinkles, cotton candy, and chocolate!

Their gummy worms aren’t as scary as some Halloween goodies, but they’re vegan or vegetarian; made with pectin instead of the gelatin (which comes from animal hooves and hides) used in so many gummy candies.

Fair Trade "Action Kit"

If it’s chocolate you seek to give, make it Fair Trade. In fact, send that chocolate with a message to buy Fair Trade Trick or Treat Action Kit composed of candy, an info card and a Mexican streamer.

It may make your house the most political on the block, but the grassroots message will be sugar-coated; the kit includes 40 dark chocolate treats.

(By the way, be sure to practice green hygiene on H-Day. Make sure those candy wrappers do not end up on the sidewalk or in any yards.)

Earth-friendly costumes are a little harder to come by. Harrisons Halloween Costumes for infants are not organic, but they are 100% cotton, so they are a great alternative to synthetic costumes.

There are multiple free patterns located online for children’s costumes, for example if they want to be animals, fairies, or even a chocolate chip cookie.

As far as completely organic, there are not many options, so this year choose to reuse and recycle. Go through your closets to see what you can turn into a costume. If you are blessed with the ability to sew, make your own costume. Either way, minimize your carbon footprint by using materials you already have.

Several websites can provide guidance, such as Mahalo, which publishes a list of easy throw-together  costume suggestions.

Digital media resources from Ken Burns’ acclaimed documentary series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, including on-demand video, lessons plans, student activities, and historical archives, are now available through the PBS Teachers web portal.

The site includes preK-12 educational services and a searchable library of more than 9,000 local and national standards-based instructional resources.

PBS Teachers and Classroom 2.0 will host a webinar on Oct. 7 to demonstrate ways to integrate the National Parks educational media and other free technologies into classroom instruction. Through the National Parks resources, educators can create an engaging tour of the nation’s historic and natural treasures while teaching students core curriculum lessons and 21st century skills.

During the PBS Teachers LIVE! webinar, “Teaching About Place With Ken Burns’ National Parks: America’s Best Idea” on Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. ET, educational experts will discuss digital storytelling, including geographic and historical projects, and model classroom activities. Educators will learn how to use National Parks and ArcGIS, a free, downloadable, 2D/3D geo-exploration and presentation tool, in teaching about national parks and curricular topics.

The webinar is sponsored by ABC-CLIO, award-winning publisher of reference titles in the field of history and social studies. In partnership with PBS Teachers, ABC-CLIO offers The Making of National Parks, a free collection of resources, including park profiles, biographies, maps, and images, to spark student interest in the creation of national parks, preservation and the dilemmas that come with it.

Filmed over 10 years, National Parks is the story of an idea as uniquely American as the Declaration of Independence and just as radical: that the most special places in the nation should be preserved, not for royalty or the rich, but for everyone. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters, personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews, and stunning cinematography, the film traces the birth of the national park idea and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years through the stories of the people who helped create and save them.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.

The National Parks educational resources are designed for middle and high school grade levels and cover art, language arts, science, and several social studies disciplines, such as history, geography, economics, and civics. Among the unique resources to help educators infuse technology into instruction are the place-based digital storytelling modules. Several video screencasts along with printable quick-start guides provide educators with step-by-step instructions on using the latest technologies to create digital storytelling projects, addressing basic to advanced level technology skills. The modules illustrate the processes of geotagging, video editing and special effects, uploading stories to the National Parks site to a part of a public collection, and more.

By Tom Kessler

ADDISON, Texas (ADDISONGREEN.INFO) — When you have the word “green” in your school name, it’s probably safe to assume that environmental awareness is top of mind. That’s exactly the case at Addison’s Greenhill School, a coeducational private day school with more than 1,200 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.

Over the last four years, the school’s Green Team — composed of parents and faculty — has led a series of sustainability initiatives that are truly putting the green in Greenhill. School leaders have looked for ways to make the school a more sustainable place and to promote eco-friendly habits in the students. >> Read the full story

EarthEcho International, a nonprofit environmental education and youth leadership organization working to restore and protect the water planet, today announced a program to involve millions of U.S. middle and high school students.

The Water Planet Challenge program, announced during the Clinton Global Initiative fifth annual meeting in New York, intends to foster tomorrow’s conservation leaders. EarthEcho says the program will fill a critical need in America’s classrooms, where it sees the lack of unified ocean and fresh-water systems education and service-learning content.

Philippe Cousteau

“Water is the single most precious substance on the planet. It is not only a universal entry point to environmental issues, it is also a universal necessity of our everyday lives,” EarthEcho International Co-Founder and CEO Philippe Cousteau said in a statement. “Though the natural environment is a leading interest of students currently participating in service experiences, there is very little content that exists to support them. If we truly want to save what my grandfather called our water planet then we must arm youth with the knowledge, skills and tools to take action to do so.”

EarthEcho International is a nonprofit founded by siblings Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau in honor of their father Philippe Cousteau Sr., the son of the legendary explorer Jacques Yves Cousteau.

Set to launch in January 2010, the Water Planet Challenge will provide middle and high school students with access to service-learning lesson plans created by Youth HandsOn Network that model multiple service opportunities (volunteerism, consumer campaigns, product development, and civic action) to support the health of the environment, and position local action within a global context. Students and teachers also will have access to standards-aligned ocean and water-related curriculum enhancement content for middle and high school students. The results of the project will be measured through digital tracking tools designed specifically for this effort by Validifi Technologies.

Planet Green, the cable and Internet channel, is the media partner for the Challenge, while Discovery Education will serve as one of the education partners. EarthEcho says the effort will be the largest environmental service-learning program in the country.

The school uniform of choice for tweens and teens is pretty simple: a T-shirt and jeans (or anything denim).

For the student who is a humanitarian or environmentally oriented, we’ve collected a line-up of Ts that are not just made of organic materials and under fair-trade conditions – they carry messages of support for Earth-friendly concerns.

• Common Threadz is a non-profit group working to aid orphans and vulnerable children in Africa. Every T-shirt purchase helps the group pay for a school uniform or food. Check out Orphan Collection – Ts designed by the African children, complete with a picture and some information about each child. In one, Wandile Dindi of South Africa (above, left) displays his design for a T-shirt (above, right). The site provides information about each child. For Wandile: ”His father has passed and his mother is unemployed and cannot support him. . . .” The Orphan T-shirts range from kids sizes ($29) through adult ($38 for women’s and $44 for men’s).

• The World of Good site on eBay offers thousands of items – from art to musical instruments – that are handmade, fair trade and “ethically sourced.” That means lots of holistic T-shirts. Examples: “Make Tea Not War” organic cotton, by The Greater Green, for $22; or a guy’s “Fight Globally” shirt, $28, (right) by AutonomieProject.

• Seattle-based Greenloop features lots of eco-friendly Ts. Everything they sell is made of natural or recycled material, and they say they buy from environmentally friendly and fair labor shops. Project Green Label has a cute Earthy statement on their organic cotton T-shirt ($38), and Andira’s pretty “Rain Forest” sky blue shirt ($38) is graphically pleasing.
  For guys, Sub_Urban Riot makes an energy statement with an organic T festooned with graphic wind turbines ($34). Green Label Organic has a funny “tree mugger” picture (left) on their green ring-spun organic cotton T for $30.

• If artistic and handmade items are what your tween or teen prefer, Etsy is a great place to shop. The site allows creative artisans and designers around the world a place to sell their singular wares. Among their green-statement Ts, the “Peace, Love and a (picture of a bicycle)” ($26) would suit either sex, young or old. It’s made by Lofty Mornings. A flat-out statement of self may suit your student: “100% Ethical” (at left) is the message on a plain white T made of un-dyed organic cotton. The T Shirt Project creation is only $14.
  An environmental message – “In the trees I do believe” – is front and center on Perusha People’s T-shirts for men and women ($23).
  GreenWorks’ “Organic Couture” shirt ($26) is a flashy T for girls. They point out that the graphic’s ink is low-impact and water-based.
  Another commentary – “Local is beautiful” – adorns Rectangle Design’s T ($24). Kitten In The Engine offers up a lengthy statement of our environmental needs (It starts with “It is too bad that we messed things up . . . “) on their organic ring-spun cotton shirt ($24).

• HinixTees has a lovely lineup of women’s earth-oriented T-shirts, such as the “Back to Roots” burnout organic option for $20 (at right). Many of their selections are selling quickly, so check it out fast.

• At California Rising’s website, there are plenty of trendy green messages on men’s T-shirts, although at $65 they’re a bit pricey.

• Edun is a popular clothing line aimed at providing sustainable work for people in developing countries. A guy’s V-neck shirt features the company’s “Freedom Respect” message for $50 (that’s a reduced price). The shirt is made in Uganda.

• If you’re a girl with Zen-like leanings, the Om Girl Freedom Buddha T-shirt of organic cotton at Vickerey will make your mindfulness known (for $44). Students who have opted to stop eating meat will love the Herbivore line, including their uni-sex “Herbivore for Life” shirt (at right, $23).

• Subtle, simple holistic messages (such as “Today matters”) are on Buy Green’s scoop-neck girls’ bamboo/organic cotton T-shirts, on sale for $29. Made by Tees for Change, the shirts are made with low-impact dyes, water-based inks, and are sweatshop-free (they’re made in Turkey).

• Oh Buggy’s line of organic Ts are hot-sellers. They are selling out quickly, but you can still grab the Pandamonium shirt for guys or girls (it’s a “mini-commentary” on the destruction of pandas’ natural habitats) for $30 (below, left).

• And girls will find short- and long-sleeved Ts and tanks that sport their favorite eco-foundation logo at PositiviTee. The company sends 10 percent of the cost of the shirts to their matching charities. For example, the tangerine T with a swinging chimp supports the Jane Goodall Institute and the turquoise shirt with fish benefits Greenpeace. (below, right; $48.95)

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

A year after showing up and discovering all the trays had vanished fron their dining halls, many college students returning to campus this fall will find more “green” changes. ARAMARK Higher Education is introducing a re-usable “to go” food container for use at the campus dining halls.

ARAMARK, which operate food services at more than 600 colleges and universities across North America, said it will roll out its new Green Thread program at many of the campuses it serves. The company projects the program will divert more than two million disposables from landfills during the 2009-2010 school year.

“Through our Green Thread environmental stewardship platform, ARAMARK continues to look for ways to reduce our environmental impact,” Michael Leone, Senior Vice President of ARAMARK Higher Education, said in a statement. “The re-usable ‘to go’ container program is the next phase of our ongoing plan to strive toward zero waste and support the sustainability goals of our partner campuses.”

ARAMARK said it successfully piloted the re-usable containers at several campuses last year, including Baylor University, University of Florida, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Peace College (NC) and Salem College (NC). Since implementing the re-usable “to go” containers in fall 2008, Baylor University reduced disposable container usage by 40 percent.

Last year, ARAMARK implemented a trayless dining program at the majority of its campus partner locations, which yielded “significant reductions” in energy, water, cleaning agents, food waste and waste removal, the company said. The new re-usable containers are dishwasher-safe and go through the same cleaning process as the dinnerware used in campus dining halls.

“Student feedback from the pilot program was very positive,” Leone said. “Everyone on campus immediately understood the reduction in landfill waste, when compared with a traditional, disposable container. Our program also commits to recycling these re-usable products at the end of their useful life.”

Green Thread was introduced in 2008 by ARAMARK to encompass a range of environmental stewardship programs and practices that can be offered to its clients.

As September and the back-to-school season creep into view, environmentally conscious students (and retailers who recognize the increased selling power of Earth-friendly claims) may be surprised at the variety of book bags, backpacks, and the like being made these days with an eye toward sustainability. From humble to elaborate, practically every sort of bag seems to be available in a green option.

The Voltaic bag, a high-tech affair covered with solar cells, has been getting attention for a couple of years now. Its photovoltaic array can power the arsenal of gizmos a student carries, and the latest versions of the bag even claim to be capable of capturing enough juice to run a laptop, provided you leave it in the sun all day. (”Sorry, prof, I didn’t want to skip class and spend the day in the park, but I had to power my computer if I want to file my research paper…”).

If you’re ready to turn over a new, green leaf this school year, there are plenty of opportunities to go eco-friendly, from recycled paper and pencils to lunch boxes and sandwich wraps made of recycled PET plastic. Compared to last year, there are more green school supplies now available and more stores are carrying them. Here’s our guide to some of the basics you be looking for:

Binders: These New Leaf binders are made from recycled paper, not plastic, so they will degrade after use. They are available in 1 inch and ½ inch. We like the reasonable price. Find them at BuyGreen.com. Or look for Terracycle Eco-Binders in 1-inch and 2-inch ring sizes at Office Max.

For report binders, try these 30 percent recycled versions at Office Depot.