Last week, guest author, Julie Bestry, shared a few of her favorite eco-friendly office products. On her first list – Recycled Post-It Notes and Bankers Boxes. Here are her final two picks.

ReBinders…and Their Buddies

Locating recycled file folders and hanging folders is relatively easy, but finding an affordable green solution for binder-style paper storage has long been a pipe dream. Three-ring binders are usually made of PVC plastic, and given that up to 500 metric tons of toxic PVC end up in landfills each year, it’s enough for a green-minded guy or gal to give up on binder storage altogether.

An innovative Seattle company is hard at work on creating alternative solutions. ReBinder is an online store offering products made from SFI- and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified post-consumer recycled materials, assembled by an AbilityOne-certified disabled workforce. Their manufacturing processes reduce energy and water consumption, as well as greenhouse gasses, solid waste, and deforestation.

The original ReBinder three-ring binders come in three versions: the no-frills Original, made from heavy-duty corrugated cardboard, the Select, made from 100 pt. chipboard, and the Professional, which takes the chipboard base of the Select and adds an elegant black cloth spine.

(To get a sense of the vast chasm between vinyl and recycled paperboard, check out ReBinder’s detailed explanation of their materials, process and end result.)

To improve your eco-friendly efforts, you can purchase replacement ReBinder covers for a fraction of the cost of the original, from $1.76 for .5″ to $2.38 for 2″ replacement covers. Sturdy, high quality Re-Tab recycled tab dividers and Re-Pouch three-hole punched slash/pocket tab dividers (which hold papers, CDs and business cards, each in their own little slots) amplify both usability and your green credibility. In addition to ReBinder’s lines of recycled binders, dividers, and pockets, they make similarly planet-friendly CD sleeves and cases, folders, conference badges, adhesive labels and notebooks, available in a sample pack of their most popular products for $25 (with free ground shipping).

PlanetSafe Dry-Erase Wall Planners and Calendars

Each year, when you discard your wall calendar and put up a new one, do you heave a sigh, imagining millions of other glossy calendars with plastic-coated spiral bindings getting tossed into the landfill? Have you wished there were a better alternative? Thanks to PlanetSafe, makers of the world’s only non-plastic erasable wall planner, there is.

These planners all have the write/wipe attributes of typical plastic wall planners, but use no petroleum-based products. PlanetSafe’s line is made from 100% recycled paper, organic vegetable inks and a 100% biodegradable plant-based film laminate. Not only made from recycled product, it’s the first erasable line that is 100% recyclable, biodegradable and compostable.
PlanetSafe products are made from durable, heavyweight write/wipe material with a glossy finish. The line includes dated one- and two-year calendar planners, as well as multiple styles and sizes of 5-, 30-, 60-, 90- and 120-day undated planners with room for notes and project planning.

The planners are designed to work with either dry-erase or wet-erase markers, as well as sticky notes – like those in the Sustain line of recycled Post-Its®!

While the boards have ample space for writing one’s thoughts, “To Do” items and action plans and then wet- or dry-erasing them afterward, tracking concepts and tasks via sticky notes allows you to quickly re-prioritize by moving, rearranging, and even color-coding…it’s sort of a retro version of cut-and-paste in Word, without a single keystroke.

From tiny notes to massive calendars, from boxed archives to binder-bound papers, there truly are affordable ways to help keep our little blue marble a little bit green.

About the Author

Julie Bestry is a Certified Professional Organizer, speaker and author, who helps individuals and businesses save time and money, reduce stress and increase productivity through new organizational skills and systems. Although a generalist, Julie specializes in paper organizing, blogs as the Paper Doll, and publishes Best Results for Busy People: Organizing Your Modern World. For more information, visit Best Results Organizing at http://www.juliebestry.com.