How green is your big box store when it comes to school supplies?
Not very — at least for some of the most popular big back-to-school retailers. Some carry green products, but not in the back-to-school category. Others carry green products, but they’re online and not necessarily available on store shelves. And one store’s definition of “eco-friendly” may be a far cry from what you’re looking for.
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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Just in time for the new school year, an environmental watchdog group has issued a report card on paper retailers with forest-friendly policies.
ForestEthics, a Canadian-US non-profit founded in 2000, and the Dogwood Alliance, a defender of Southern US forests based in Asheville, N.C., collaborated on the third annual Green Grades report, which placed FedEx Office and Office Depot at the top of their class.
FedEx Office received an A- and Office Depot a B. Staples got a B- and Office Max a C in the group’s evaluation of the office retail sector.
Tags: · Amazon, Asia Pulp & Paper, Boreal Forest, Costco, Dogwood Alliance, FedEx Office, ForestEthics, Forestry Stewardship Council, Green Grades report card, Home Depot, Indonesian tropical forests, International Paper, Office Max, paper sustainability, Staples
By Laura Elizabeth May
Green Right Now
In celebration of Earth Day, Staples is making it easy for customers to recycle their old printers. The company is offering free printer recycling and a $50 rebate with the purchase of a new printer valued at $179 and up.
This is the second consecutive year that Staples will be hosting a printer recycling event. The company collected over 100,000 printers last year and expects more this year.
Customers just need to bring their old printer to any Staples location in order to participate.
Tags: · Earth Day, EcoEasy printers, Recycle & Reuse, Staples
Well, slap us with a ruler, it’s time once again to hunt down school supplies, to elbow into the desperate mob with our mandates to secure a thousand pens, pencils, highlighters, fine tip Sharpies, binders and the mysterious “folders with brads.”
With the eco news streaming like ticker tape from the big office stores this year, we thought it would be an easy assignment to find what we needed in recycled versions. We were surprised that this was not the case. The stores we sampled (Office Depot, Office Max and Target) offered only a handful of green notebooks and non-toxic pens. At Office Depot we nearly struck out, looking in vain for recycled filler paper, reasonably priced eco-responsible spiral notepads and pencils made from post-consumer waste. We did spot a reusable shopping bag at the checkout line. But we had only a lone green item, Ticonderoga EnviroStik pencils, to put in it!
Tired of combat crawling through towering stacks of un-green paper and binders, we turned the Internet. Aha! Here we found much greener pastures. Online, even the Big Box stores that had failed us in person had the environmentally good goods. Go figure. Serves us right for expending $4 gasoline to search out environmentally friendly products. Our findings, and a powerfully definitive list it is:
Tags: · Greenline Paper, Office Depot, Office Max, Progressive Kid, Recycled Paper, School supplies, Smencils, Staples, Target
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift