A Green Back-to-School
Kids spend a big chunk of their days inside
a school, so it's critical that the school environment:
- has good indoor air quality
- does not expose kids to toxic chemicals
- allows for recess and physical education, and generally promotes health and well-being.
1. Check the Health and Sustainability of your School
One in five people in the U.S. – 55 million children, teachers, administrators, janitors, and nurses – spend their days in K-12 schools. A growing body of research shows that a poor environment at school is detrimental to children’s health and learning. Yet, the U.S. Environmental Protection agency estimates that the environmental conditions in as many as half of all schools is unhealthy.
Check the health, safety, and sustainability of your school using the following helpful checklists and tools:
- Healthy Schools Network - tips on how to get started
- Take the Green Schools Quiz - Find out how green your school is with our online quiz. If you score 31 or higher you may be eligible to be part of our Green Schools Honor Roll.
- Green Cleaners – Use our Green Cleaning Toolkit to get your school to switch to non-toxic cleaners
to improve indoor air quality and reduce asthma and absenteeism.
- Indoor Air Quality App - There’s an App for That from US EPA: a mobile app to assess the indoor air quality at schools and provides access to their Indoor Air Tools for Schools Action Kit. The tool will help identify and prioritize IAQ improvements district wide.
- What is a “green school”
– Check out our "Little Green Schoolhouse" graphic that shows the 4 key
elements of a green school built on the foundation of the Precautionary Principle (Download the graphic as a PDF).
2. Re-use, Recycle, & Buy Environmentally-Friendly Back-to-School Supplies
Your back-to-school purchases make a huge difference. Here's why:
14 billion pencils are produced every year, many made with wood from ancient forests. Americans use about 31.5 million tons of printing and writing paper each year, requiring 535 million trees (most from virgin tree fiber) and 12 billion gallons of oil to make. The average American consumes about 660 pounds of paper per year, compared to 550 pounds in Japan and only about 8.8 pounds in India. Some estimates suggest that 400 million used whiteboard markers -- that's 25,000 tons -- are thrown out in U.S. schools every year, ending up in landfills. A switch to non-toxic refillable aluminum whiteboard markers would save money and waste.
Re-use and Recycle:
- Can you reuse binders, pencils, and markers from last year? You might not need to buy much new.
- Buy refillable whiteboard markers and re-use them for years.
- Shop for used binder notebooks at your local re-use agency. In the Bay Area check out East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse - 3-ring notebooks are about 25 cents.
- Buy used clothing at numerous fashionable and funky stores and/or donate your own used clothing. In the Bay Area, check out: Hannah's, Buffalo Exchange, Crossroads Trading Co., Goodwill, Salvation Army, Out of the Closet, and more. You can find info about most of these stores under East Bay Used Children's Clothing. Or look on-line or in the Yellow Pages under "used children's clothing."
- Visit the Green Schools Buying Guide. It's for everyone -- whether you're overhauling school policy or just need to purchase a few reams of paper.
- Center for Health, Environment and Justice – Check out their 2013 Guide to PVC-Free Back-to-School Supplies and their Back-to-School Checklist.
- New American Dream - has 5 tips to simplify back-to-school shopping and also for college students.
- New Leaf Paper - You can find gorgeous New Leaf notebooks, spiral, binders, and paper at Office Depot, Office Max, Kroger, Amazon.com, Target and other retailers.
- The Green Office - (online) Sells supplies with recycled content, fewer hazardous chemicals, PVC-free, and reusability (like refillable pens). New "PVC-free Catalog": they removed nearly 2,000 products containing PVC or vinyl from their old catalog! Enter the coupon code TGOWELCOME at checkout, 