Basically – tree made paper is us tossing scads of trees into the trash. Lame. It’s especially lame when you consider that paper can be made from all sorts of other stuff, such as, cotton, wheat straw, sugar cane waste, flax, bamboo, wood, linen rags, hemp, and again recycled paper.

If you’re not going to buy recycled paper the best choice is paper that’s made without the use of trees. Here are some options:

Paper made from sugar: The Sugar Cane Paper Company makes paper products like tissues, plates, and more from, as you might guess, sugar cane. Well, technically, it’s made with bagasse; residue left over once sugar has been extracted from the cane. Sugar cane paper is easy to find online and it’s 100% biodegradable.

Paper made from bamboo: This paper has a downside – it’s not that available. YET. Hopefully it will become more popular because bamboo grows faster than trees and bamboo needs less water so there’s another conservation perk. Right now visit Smock to see some bamboo paper goods.

Paper made from hemp: Hemp paper is coming around as a decent contender in the tree free paper world with lots of great paper type choices, for example at Green Field Paper Company. Hemp requires few if any pesticides to grow well, helps control erosion, and contains nutrients and nitrogen that end up back in the soil. Plus hemp is biodegradable.

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

Not all paper comes from trees!

However, here’s the deal. When you blog people like to send you free stuff. That may sound great, but I don’t like getting free stuff. I think we’ve pretty well established that I don’t love a lot of extra stuff, and while I sometimes get handy items that I use, mostly I get stuff that I just turn around and give away in a contest or to a friend.

That said, I received a different sort of white board item last October. I did a review and liked it, but really, I didn’t think I’d be using it all that often. In fact, I almost gave it away. That would have sucked, because as it turns out, it may be the one and only item a company ever sent me that I use every single day. Every day, no joke.

What’s this wonder item:

It’s the Jot-It desktop writing board from cocoa. It’s not a typical white board. It’s desk friendly. It’s not desk friendly for me because I have a small desk. What I use it for is a to-do lists system. I keep it in the kitchen and write down groceries I need, phone numbers, tasks I don’t want to forget, and more.

Last October I wrote a super long review of the Jot-It at my Office blog. Since I’m not going to rewrite the review here, you can read it there. Just to get you tempted, here are some pictures:

I will say here, that this is a great green product that can save on paper use, and help to get you organized at the same time. Additionally, one of my cons, in my old review, was that pens were not offered at the cocoa online shop – I felt it would be useful to be able to pick up more from cocoa directly. Well, since then they have added pens to their online store. Cool beans that a company listens to consumers in my opinion.

I will also point out that I LOVE the pen that came with the Jot-It. I’m still using the original pen, and remember, I use this daily, and I got this in October. That’s one good pen.

In any case this is not some plain old white board item. You’ll really like it. You can use it in your kitchen, on your desk, at the office, or really anywhere. Read my old review – or simply visit cocoa’s website to learn more.

Post from: Blisstree

Another Dry Erase Board – Seriously?