TORONTO

Parents helping their children make the transition from vacation mode back to the books may be seeing green as they hit stores to stock up on supplies.

Retailers are offering an array of eco-friendly items for back to school, like recycled notebooks and organic cotton pencil cases.

But the green school supplies aren't centred solely around the classroom, with items allowing students to tote their food and drinks and other school must-haves in eco-friendly style as well.

Helen Nestor, owner of Toronto green store Dandelion Mud Pie, said among the items for the lunchroom is a special container, featuring separate storage compartments, that is free of both lead and phthalates -- chemicals used to make plastics flexible.

As other municipalities consider following the lead of London, Ont., where city councillors recently voted to ban the sale of bottled water on city premises, students seeking to buck the use of disposable bottles may opt for a stainless steel reusable container.

"You don't have to worry about plastic bottles, you don't have to worry about anything leaching into your water,'' said Nestor, who stocks the containers among a host of green items like stainless steel food containers and PVC-free messenger bags.

Nestor said while eco-friendly paper products and backpacks are slightly more expensive than traditional back-to-school gear, consumers will see rewards from their initial investment.

"You're probably spending less money on a lunch kit than you would buying plastic bags every two or three weeks,'' she said. "These companies that are invested in the eco world want these products to last longer than just a season -- that's the whole idea.

"Initially you might invest more, but you're going to have it for longer, and when you divide it out over the years that you have it, you're paying less in the end.''

But well before parents head out to their local office supply store, one eco-conscious consideration would be to assess if they truly need anything new, said Jed Goldberg, president of Earth Day Canada, a national environmental charity.

"This is really a time of the year where there's such a tremendous amount of shopping that's done to help kids get ready for school, and to be perfectly honest, I'm sure that a lot of it is not really necessary,'' he said.

"And consuming of product and buying things and disposing of things unnecessarily really is a significant environmental problem.''

Binders, for example, are among the supplies that could probably be used year after year, Goldberg said.

Instead of shelling out for new ones, he suggests giving younger kids stickers to decorate them, or patches to sew on their backpacks to switch things up.

As for clothes, Goldberg said it's also not necessary for kids to have a completely new wardrobe. Clothes can be repaired or handed down -- and the same is true for kids and hobbies, he said.

If a child expresses an interest in music, sports or another activity, before buying a new guitar or equipment, explore if there's a way to rent or borrow the item to ensure it warrants purchasing, Goldberg added.

"These are little things that don't seem all that significant, but when you add them all up and you multiply them by large factors of people that are active in doing these kinds of things it really does translate into some significant environmental benefit.''