Best recycled paper products for home & office

Although one New York City family famously pledged to live without toilet tissue for a year, as chronicled in No Impact Man, post-consumer-recycled paper is about as low-impact as most of us can get. And actually that's quite a lot. In addition to saving trees, which store CO2 and keep it from further warming Earth's atmosphere, making recycled paper uses about 50% less energy than making virgin paper, according to the California Department of Environmental Management. Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases are much on our minds this Blog Action Day, whose theme is climate change. Office and School Paper Why post-consumer? Because it means that the paper has actually been used and recycled. Plain "recycled" can include virgin paper manufacturing scraps. So look for at least 30% post-consumer-waste (PCW or PCR) recycled content in all the paper you buy. In an ideal world, we could all afford 100% PCW paper, which saves 5 lbs. Of CO2 per ream (500 sheets), as calculated by Stop Global Warming. But the cheapest I could find in stores was MEAD 100% PCR multiuse recycled copy paper, 24-lb weight, for over $22/ream (500 sheets). Hammermill 30% PCR multiuse paper was about $5/ream. That still saves about 1.6 lbs of CO2! Both papers are available at Recycled Products; 30% multiuse PCR reams can also be bought for about $5 at Staples stores. Recycled Paper with PCW from 30–100 percent, as well as chlorine-free, eco-certified, and tree-free papers can be found from the following makers: Badger Paper Boise Aspen Dolphin Blue Green Field Paper Hammermill Mohawk Paper New Leaf Wasau Staples sells its own, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified brand; its labels say that their 30% PCW paper reduces greenhouse gases by 11% and their 100% PCW stock means 37% less carbon emitted. Online retailers, which often have better prices, include Amazon Recycled Products The Paper Mill Store / Paper Towels, Napkins, Tissues The up-to 80% PCW paper towels, napkins, facial and toilet tissues made by the companies below are also processed without chlorine (PCF), thus keeping toxic dioxins out of the environment. Cascade’s "North River" brand Earth First (at Safeway stores) Planet Seventh Generation, / Whole Foods’s 365 / Marcal contains 20-60% PCR, according to Conservatree. Kimberly Clark's Scott paper products have pledged to go 40% PCW recycled and FSC certified by 2011. An informative place to shop for green papers is Treecycle. Also see Greenpeace's guide, which lists brands of facial and toilet tissues, paper towels and napkins that have at least 100% recycled content, 50% post-consumer-recycled content, and are processed without chlorine bleach. And do your own paper use/carbon emissions calculations courtesy of Environmental Defense Fund. Since it's Blog Action Day, we've signed on to take action to stop global warming here. Please join us! And impress (and motivate) your friends with Pew's global warming facts and stats.

Switch to BPA-free Sigg and other bottles

Sigg's come clean: Until August 2008, Sigg's pretty aluminum bottles contained ugly bisphenol-A (BPA). But no more! See my updated list of BPA-free drink and baby bottles here. After all, we're already getting exposed to BPA in canned foods.

How to stop junk mail

Time to liberate yourself from waves of paper junk mail. Sure, you recycle, but who wants to lug what you never asked for in the first place?

A free and easy way to do this is Catalog Choice. You search for participating catalog companies and check off the ones you want to oust from your mailbox. It's quite a comprehensive list, includind many familiar green-minded as well as conventional companies.

It takes up to 3 months to take effect, but at least you'll know that it's gonna end.

Also free: Call companies whose mailings you don't want. Use the toll-free customer service phone number in the catalog. After all, you can always shop online or by phone, and save on gasoline and greenhouse gases released out of the tailgate of your car.

Take yourself off junk mail lists by using the Direct Mail Association's DMAchoice.org service. It costs but $1. .tomcat2

Or, subscribe to Mail Stopper Tonic (formerly Green Dimes ). For $20 a year, they'll declutter your mailbox and plant five trees on your behalf.

See the New American Dream's Junk the Junk Mail campaign.

For more info, click here.

Green gifts, part one.

Simple holidays can be the most sumptuous. Among my favorite Christmas gifts ever are tins of dark spicy gingersnaps baked by my friend Cindy. She gives them in colorful tins decorated with the Breton folk and flowers of Quimper ware (we both studied in France). Every time I refill the tins with my homemade cakes and cookies, I think of Cindy.

Then there's our pollinator friend, Franny. She fertilizes vanilla blossoms by hand with a medicine dropper, and her homemade vanilla extract makes my cookies gift-worthy.

In this spirit, Kokua Hawaii Foundation has an appealing list of simple tips for greening your holidays without wasting energy and other resources or spending too much green. It includes fresh ideas such as going caroling with bags to pick up rubbish along the way, and important reminders, such as combining errands into one trip to use less fuel and emit less CO2.

Kokua means "help" and "care for" in Hawaiian. Check out their 12 Days green holidays list.

The Rainforest Alliance also advises being less materialistic about gifts. That said, if someone you know needs something, you can help them and the planet by choosing RA-certified products. Certainly, everyone needs coffee and chocolate, don't we?

Here are a few ideas from RA:

Khoury Furniture has a “Certified by SmartWood” line. The wood used in the manufacture of these pieces comes from forests managed to protect wildlife, waterways and the safety of workers.

Cutting boards by Preserve Products are made from 100% post-consumer recycled FSC-certified PaperStone™ paper.

Willamette Valley Vineyards wine bottles are stopped with cork harvested from FSC/Rainfo rest Alliance Certified forests. These provide habitat for wildlife including the endangered Iberian Lynx.

The best coffee beans are from farms that protect the environment and the rights of workers. Brands that buy from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms include Caribou Coffee , Allegro Coffee, Yuban, Irving Farm and many more.

A gift of chocolate can benefit ecosystems and farm workers when you buy brands like Newman’s Own Organics, Vosges Haut-chocolat, Kallari and Vintage Plantations (their chocolate "library," above, makes an eco-literate statement!) that buy cocoa grown under the canopy by Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.

What else? Give of yourself by volunteering in your community. Give to non-profits, like the two above, and get a tax deduction. Or buy from artists who donate to environmental causes. Jack Johnson, for one, is donating 50% of net proceeds from his new album to Kokua Hawaii Foundation. A digital download (no wasteful packaging, no fuel miles) costs $12.

Best Green Halloween Chocolate List

A healthy Halloween for people and planet is possible! First, did we really need a study to show that eating chocolate produces feelings of joy? Dark chocolate also lowers blood pressure and cardiovascular risk, according to an article in the Archives of Internal Medicine. It might also fight diabetes, the journal Circulation reported this year.


In addition to our health, we can do some good for the environment and workers' welfare by dosing ourselves with the chocolates below, which are, as noted, certified organic (O), fairly traded and grown without forced child labor (F), and/or shade-grown (S)under rainforest canopies, which preserves habitat for migratory birds, and with fewer chemicals, as certified by the Rainforest Alliance (RA), which is also partnering with Mars to certify more cacao farms.

more fr RA chocolate Newman’s Own Organics, Vosges Haut-chocolat, Kallari and Vintage Plantations that buy cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.from Artisan du Chocolat, Côte d'Or, Kallari, Nature's Treasures, Newman's Own Organics, Sibu Chocolates and The Chocolate Truffle Company.

Art Bar (O,F) (www.artbar.com)
Cocavino (O,F) (www.cocoavino.com)
Divine (F) (www.divinechocolate.com)
Eccobella (F) (www.eccobella.com)
Equal Exchange (O,F) (www.equalexchange.org).
Gaia (O,F) (www.katescaringgifts.com)
Green and Black’s Maya Gold bars (O,F) (www.greenandblacks.com)
Lake Champlain Hot Cocoa (O,F) (www.lakechamplainchocolates.com)
La Siembra (O,F) (www.lasiembra.com)
Newman’s Own Organics (O)

RainforestFriendly(O,F,S) http://www.rainforestfriendly.com/chocolate.php
Rapunzel (O,F) (http://www.rapunzel.com/)

Shaman Chocolates (O)(http://www.shamanchocolates.com/)
Sweet Earth (O,F) (www.sweetearthchocolates.com)
Theo’s (O,F): Proceeds from their Jane Goodall Bar contribute to her chimpanzee institute. (www.theochocolate.com).
Vintage Plantations Arriba (O,F, RA) (www.chocolatepath.com)
Yachana (FTF) (http://www.yachanagourmet.com/)

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Can Poetry save the Earth?

Went to talk today at alumni reunion by a fave English Lit professor from undergraduate days, John Felstiner. His book asks this question, and puts us back in touch with attentiveness to the pleasure of just being in Nature. And the awe. He quotes William Stafford's "The Well Rising," watching swallows fly and concluding, "I place my feet with care in such a world."

But can poetry save the Earth? "What can poetry do?" Felstiner asks. "Next to nothing. But that would still be something."

I heartily recommend this thoughtful, lively book, at once an anthology of nature poems--by Blake, Coleridge, Keats, Wordsworth, Clare, Roethke, Snyder, St. Vincent Millay, Momaday, Levertov and more-- and an expedition of discovery with Felstiner as a searching and witty guide. It makes me feel saved!

Can Poetry Save the Earth, from Yale University Press.

International EVERYday of Climate Action

Today is International Day of Climate Action, and you can join and start making a difference just by being counted as among the caring at 350.org. You can also find lots of actions you and your family can join in your locale. For example, in Hawaii, students are drawing a blue line with chalk to show how high sea levels will rise if CO2 emissions continue to grow at their current rate.

But of course, to really take effect, the Day of Climate Action should be every day. That's where we individuals make a difference with the small steps we take in our daily lives, from home energy and transportation to recycling, our food, computing and paper choices, and more.

Stay in touch! Let me know what you did on climate action day (or not), and what you'd like to know more about doing every day. Subscribe to my free email newsletter full of tips by sending an email with "subscribe" in the subject line to GreenerPenny@gmail.com, and forward it to your friends. Thank you.