Office - Office Depot Green products

I once had a job where I was in charge of ordering office supplies. That meant I got to browse through the big catalog of supplies and see the staggering variety of envelopes, file folders, calendars and other essentials of modern office life.

I don't recall many - if any - recycled products in that catalog, but fortunately things are beginning to change.

In April, Office Depot® announced the launch of a new line of 'Office Depot® Green™' products including copy paper, hanging folders, all-purpose wipes, manila folders, hand soap, cleaning sprays, academic planners and note pads.

Some of these products are better and greener than others. The 100% recycled hanging folders ($9.99) are made from minimum 95% post-consumer recycled content. Not only that, but they look and feel almost the same as conventional hanging folders.

On the other hand, some of the other products like the perforated writing pads ($5.99), weekly/monthly planners ($8.99) and manila folders ($21.29) contain only 30-40% post-consumer content.

It would be great to see Office Depot increase the percentages of post-consumer content in some of these products, especially items like the manila file folders where having a uniform writing surface is not of paramount importance.

Still, there are plenty of office products on the market that contain 0% recycled content. If you've been buying those supplies, you can take a giant green step forward by switching to Office Depot Green products.

FYI, we didn't get to test any of the soaps or cleaners first-hand, except for the all-purpose wipes ($5.99). Honestly, we weren't terribly impressed with their green-ness. For one thing, they come in a big plastic tub. For another, the label says the cleaning solution used on the wipes is "formulated with less toxic chemicals than traditional cleaning products". OK, less toxic is good. But non toxic is better. And since there's no ingredient list, you can't judge the toxicity for yourself or do any research on it. Finally, the label calls the wipes biodegradable, but an asterisk qualifier points out that only the cleaning agent is biodegradable, not the wipe itself.

Where to buy:
Find Office Depot Green products at more than 1,200 Office Depot stores nationwide or buy online at Office Depot's website.