Go Back To School With Eco-Friendly School Supplies

Summer's been a blast but now it is time to start checking things off on those back-to-school shopping lists. I was just talking with a friend who is mom to three school-age girls, and she was bemoaning the endless list of school supplies to be tracked down as her girls prepare themselves for the coming year.

In the rush to get school-ready, we are so caught up in gathering the essentials for our kids, that we can forget about the negative impact all of those school supplies can have on the environment.

Paper Mate has not forgotten and now, to give us an opportunity to be proactive for the environment, Paper Mate has launched a new line of eco-friendly writing utensils, which include biodegradable pens and mechanical pencils. What an awesome idea!

To help demonstrate how products impact our environment, and to witness first-hand how eco-friendly these writing utensils are, we participated in the Plant-A-Pen Challenge. The Challenge was created by Mom Central, in partnership with Paper Mate.

For the challenge, we first separated the components of the pen into the biodegradable and non-biodegradable parts. (The packaging clearly explains which parts of the pen may be returned to the environment, and which may not.)

Next, we planted the biodegradable components of our Paper Mate pen on the edge of a nature reserve next door to our apartment. We marked the spot with our favorite Easter Bunny garden ornament, so we'll know where to go for our check up visits! Assuming all goes as it should, the planted pen will begin to break down over the next few months, and its components will biodegrade back into the soil.

At first, Pudding Pie was perplexed by this activity (she's never helped Mommy plant a pen before...), but now she's excited and she keeps wanting to check on its progress! This is such a great way to show her how something as small as a pen has an effect on our environment, and I confess that I am as excited as Pudding Pie to watch the biodegrading begin!

Pudding Pie marking the spot of our freshly planted pen.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Paper Mate and received the products necessary to facilitate my review. In addition, I received a gift certificate to thank me for taking the time to participate.