Almost daily, I read TreeHugger, The Good Human and about a dozen other eco-friendly sites while doing research for my real job. My husband jokes that I'm becoming a new age, tree hugging hippie freak. Ha! He's the VP of Ops for a Biofuels company. Talk about pot calling kettle black.

Between you and me...he's kinda right. The moment I'm aware of an eco-friendly alternative to a product we already use, I'm sold.

We already use homeopathic and herbal remedies as a first line of defense when it comes to our health. We already see a chiropractor for preventative maintenance. Over the past year or so I've been slowly changing us over to more eco-friendly cleaners and personal care products.

One area where I haven't done such a great job? School supplies.

With back-to-school just around the corner for us, I'm committed to greening up the kids' lives. Thought I'd share some of the products I've come across.

Here are my top 5 eco-friendly back-to-school ideas:

1) Did you know that vinyl lunch boxes can contain lead?! Yeah, I didn't want to know that either. Awareness kinda ruins things sometimes. Now, I can't use the cheap vinyl lunch boxes, despite how darn cute some of them are. I suppose an alternative would be a brown paper bag, but that can lead to deforestation. We can't exactly hug trees if they're all cut down, right?

I found a few eco-friendly lunch container options:

If you prefer to use a brown paper bag, at least these recycled paper lunch bags. They are, well, 100% recycled.

or, even better...

Check out these lunch boxes from citizenpip:

Totally on my shopping list right now. They contain "no lead, BPA, PVC, or phthalate." They are cute enough that your kids might forgive you for not letting them have that way-cool-but-full-of-chemicals Lightning McQueen lunch box. These are insulated and waterproof. They have a nameplate. AND the best part? They are only $10.

If you are like me, you love the idea of an eco-friendly lunch, but buying the entire kit would blow the budget. I'm buying bits and pieces separately to make our own lunch kit.

I'll admit, I still use plastic snack bags sometimes. I also bought a few plastic sandwich containers w/cool cartoon logos at the dollar store. I'm not sure they will get along with the new eco-friendly lunch box and water bottle, lol. If I'm going to go green, I'm going to go all the way.

I found these eco-friendly waxed paper bags. They are "made from unbleached fibers", "will not contaminate groundwater" and are "non-toxic when incinerated." They are somewhat comparable in price to plastic baggies. Honestly, I know they are disposable, but I'll probably use these.

If you want to take it a step further, you could buy these reusable cotton bags at Eco Lunch Gear.

2) Now that I picked out a lunch box and snack bags, I'm looking for a great water bottle.

Some disturbing stats:

• Just manufacturing the 29 billion plastic bottles used for water in the United States each year requires the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of crude oil. (source)
• 86 percent of plastic water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter. Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts such as chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals. Buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade. (source)

Just say no to disposable water bottles - especially when we're talking about putting them into 2 kids' lunches all week. We would be throwing out 9 bottles/week. That adds up.

For $10, citizenpip has a cute aluminum one, but I've already mentioned them. I'll share more linky love.

SIGG is a well-known brand that seems to have captured the market in eco-friendly water bottles. They claim to be "100-percent safe with NO leaching." You can even custom design your bottle wrap, which will appeal to the kids.

 3) Lunch box? Check. Water bottle? Check. Let's move on to backpacks. This is a touchy area for me because most of the eco-friendly options are extremely pricey. My kids are still young; my oldest is entering second grade. She needs enough space to carry a folder, her fabulous eco-friendly lunch box and maybe a sweater. I found a couple that are somewhat reasonable:

This Chloe the Cat Backpack from CBH Studio might do the trick. It's part of their little packrats line. Lots of different animals, very cute. All PVC-free. The business is "100% woman-owned and operated" and all backpacks are made right here in the USA.

For the bigger kids, Lands' End has their eco-friendly backpacks on sale. Made from "100% recycled fabric that's made from discarded plastic drinking bottles."

4) I love, love, love KEEN footwear. It's made from recycled rubber. Also just found Simple Shoes. They are committed to a 100% sustainable product. Way cool. I might get these for Max:

They are made from organic cotton, recycled tires and recycled inner tubes. In fact, they are called "Innertube".

5) There are so many great products out there, I debated about the 5th and final product to share with you. For some reason, i couldn't resist glue sticks. They always seem to appear on our school shopping list. Check out Coccoina Adhesive-Glue Sticks. They're a bit pricey, but if you are worried about your kid eating glue, this is "non-toxic, non-solvent, and acid free"...and supposedly, it tastes like marzipan.

Hope you found this helpful.  Let me know if you've come across any great eco-friendly school supplies.

About This Post

It’s back-to-school time, and this year Sprite and TwitterMoms have partnered with bloggers like me to share back-to-school tips and tricks, advice, stories and more! Visit Sprite's back-to-school channel on TwitterMoms to get helpful ideas, learn how to survive the back to school rush, seek out advice from other TwitterMoms and join the conversation. You can learn more about donating your My Coke Rewards Points to support your local school, how to enter for a chance to win some Back to School cash, check out recipes, or even play some fun games. Here's to a successful and stress-free back to school season from Sprite and TwitterMoms!

This post has been sponsored by Sprite and TwitterMoms only. None of the products or companies listed sponsored this post. I do not receive any form of payment from the companies if you buy their products, (well, except for the one amazon link).