Recycled-Content Products  
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Recycled-Content Products

The work of collecting, sorting, and processing recycled materials only benefits the environment if those materials are manufactured into new products. But that won’t happen unless there’s a market for those new goods. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find a recycled “alternative” for the item you need right now! We hope the following information helps you to “complete the loop” and purchase products with recycled content whenever possible.

Please note: This list has been compiled by the Chicago Recycling Coalition to help increase the market for recycled-content goods. The Chicago Recycling Coalition does not endorse or guarantee the products or services of the businesses and organizations that are included in this list. We welcome additions and comments.

There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth.  We are all crew. 
Marshall McLuhan, 1964

General Resources/Directories

Center for a New American Dream has an online marketplace for environmentally friendly products, including some with recycled content.

Co-op America's Green Pages Online provides a listing of green businesses and over 25,000 products, many of which are made with recycled content.

Eco Logo is Canada's eco-labeling program, offering information and sources for many categories of recycled products.

Green Seal  is an independent, non-profit organization that promotes products and services that cause less toxic pollution, conserve resources, and minimize global warming and ozone depletion.

The Chicago Recycling Coalition is now on Facebook. Click here to go to go to our page .

 

 

 

 

 

General Merchandise Catalogs and Web-based Purchasing

Clothes Made From Scrap creates tee shirts, caps, totes, and more from recycled soda bottles and reclaimed cotton.

Concept Eco offers apparel and items such as backpacks and lunch bags made from Ecospun fiber, which is produced from recycled soda bottles.

Gaiam/Harmony catalog offers a number of Seventh Generation 100 percent recycled paper products for the home (e.g. paper towels, bathroom and facial tissue, etc.), as well as recycling and composting bins, recycled glassware, and more.

Green Glass doesn't melt down recycled glass to manufacture its products, but instead creates goblets and vases from whole reclaimed wine and water bottles.

Green Home offers a wide range of environmentally preferable home products, many made with recycled materials, from furniture to table ware to art supplies.

Seventh Generation produces recycled-content products, which are available at many grocery and health food stores and through Gaiam catalogs. (The website is informational, only, and does not sell products directly.)

Weisenbach Specialty Printing offers a wide array of recycled products including photo frames made from barn wood, recycled glass award disks, recycled HDPE-plastic plaques, recycled plastic bird feeders, and more.

Recycled Office Products

New Leaf Paper, a company based in Elk Grove Village, sells a range of office products made with recycled paper, including calendars, desk pads, and journals.

The Real Earth, Inc. offers recycled office products from binders to paper to recycled-content pens and pencils.

Recycled Paper

Conservatree addresses myths about recycled paper (Does it jam copiers? No!), defines paper types, gives sources for recycled cards and wrap, and strategies to reduce paper use.

The Green Press Initiative is a non-profit organization that helps publishers, printers, and authors work together to conserve natural resources and preserve endangered forests, particularly through the use of recycled and alternative fiber paper.  The first book printer to join GPI was Michigan-based Thomson-Shore .

Living Tree Paper promotes and sells recycled and hemp-based papers. The CRC's newsletter, What Goes Around , is printed by Living Tree on 100 percent recycled paper stock.

New Leaf Paper produces environmentally sound printing and office papers using high post-consumer recycled content and minimizing or eliminating chlorine and chlorine compounds.