school! it's coming! get your supplies!

Retailers have been telling us to hurry up and get our back-to-school supplies since school let out, but now we really are getting close.

Happily, 85 per cent of Canadian parents will consider buying environmentally friendly products while back-to-school shopping for their school-age children*.

Here's our list of cool things we'd fill our hemp backpacks with:

• recycled binder
  
• solar calculator
  
• recycled exercise books (manufactured in Canada!)
  
• unbleached cotton pencil case
  
• recycled copy paper
  
• gen pens made from cell phones and headlights
  

*According to a July 2008 STAPLES Business Depot survey. STAPLES offers more than 2,000 eco-friendly items at their locations across Canada, and online.