Billed as the nation's largest green consumer living event, the weekend’s 8th annual San Francisco Green Festival was the place to look for one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly wedding favors.
Green Festival organizers ensured that each of the 400+ vendors were fully vetted saying, “All exhibitors must meet strict standards set by Green America, guaranteeing the highest level of social and environmental responsibility over everything that enters the festival.”
Here’s a sampling of some of the green products that could just be the unique green wedding favors you’re looking for — many of them from local small businesses that launched their companies this year, some even days before the festival.
Guilt-free gift wrap by Living Ethos. Fill these fabulous favor bags
with your favorite scented herbs or tea leaves.
Living Ethos Gift Wrap — by Living Ethos
Sure to look stunning on your place settings, these stylish and reusable drawstring bags make wrapping a cinch by acting as guilt-free gift wrap. Fill the bags with fresh-scented herbs like rosemary, organic bon bons, tea leaves, or whatever you desire. Feel good knowing the bags can be reused again and again by your guests as gift wrap or as a fashionable storage solution. The bags, which debuted in July, are sewn locally in San Francisco using 100% cotton and the ribbons are made from recycled PET soda bottles.
$6 for mini-sized bags.
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Fresh Snack Packs can be filled with fresh fruit, then reused again and
again for future goodies. Photo by Lei Chen.
Fresh Snack Packs — by Go Fresh
Your guests will be sure to find an every day use for these favors. Made of PVC-free EVA plastic, these cleverly designed reusable baggies, take the place of disposable plastic snack and sandwich bags. Company founder, Crystal Figlietti of Pacifica, was hit with the idea for Fresh Snack Packs after packing her umpteenth school lunch for her three children. She says, “I saw the need for making something that was just as convenient, but that wasn’t so wasteful and disposable.” Her kids have been reusing the same Fresh Snack Pack sandwich bags for 100 school days and counting. For your wedding, fill with finds from the farmers market like aromatic organic lavender or fresh fruit that can double as desert.
$4 for snack sized packs, $5 for sandwich sized packs.
Botanical soaps by Sapothecary, made from organic oils.
Emboss with your wedding design.
Handmade botanical soaps — by Sapothecary
Made from pure certified organic California olive oil, organic palm oil, and organic coconut oils, these handcrafted soaps from an olive oil ranch in Ukiah are naturally refreshing favors. The first soaps were made from the the ranch's olive oil by one of the gardeners. Sapothecary soaps can be custom embossed with a design of your choice and are available “bare” or packaged in 100% recycled and recyclable boxes.
$18 for four 3.5 oz bars.
O'Bon pencils are made from recycled newspapers.
Recycled Newspaper Pencils and Notebooks — by O’Bon
Your guests will take note with these environmentally friendly pencils and notebooks from O’Bon that aim to reduce deforestation. Every pencil in the newspaper series is unique, as each one is made from a different sheet of recycled Chinese newspaper. Other pencil sets feature colorful fruit and wildlife animal designs. O’Bon notebooks are made of bagasse which is the pulp leftover after the juices are extracted from sugarcane. Notebooks also feature images of fruit or exotic bird feathers. The South San Francisco-based company will plant a tree for every purchase.
$4 per pack of 10 pencils, $4 per notebook,
The favors are "in the bag."
Reusable Produce Bags — by Blue Lotus
These favors are in the bag. Blue Lotus’ produce and bulk food bags are made exclusively with organic cotton. The family-run business in Santa Cruz pays its sewers a fair living wage. They say the inspiration to make reusable bags came from a trip to Belize in which the family’s daily walk involved collecting endless plastic debris from the seashore.
$3.99 for small produce bags.
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Theo Chocolates – equal parts delicious & ethical.
Photo by Sara Tro/Trofeo Photography
Theo Chocolate — by Theo Chocolate
Sure to delight the taste buds, Theo Chocolate guarantees its chocolate is “equal parts delicious and ethical.” Theo claims to be the only organic, fair trade, “bean-to-bar” chocolate factory in the United States. Its cocoa beans are sustainably grown and purchased directly from farmers and grower cooperatives. Theo Chocolates are available at Whole Foods, Rainbow Grocery, New Leaf Grocery, Berkeley Bowl and online.
$4.40 for a two-piece box. $7 for two bars.
Skoy Cloths — by Skoy
Think the quicker, picker upper a hundred times over. These reusable, natural kitchen cleaning cloths come in bright fun prints, but can also be custom printed with your own wedding design and colors.
Skoy Cloths – the new quicker, picker upper.
The absorbent 100% biodegradable cloths are made from a blend of cotton and wood pulp cellulose, and are meant to replace paper towels and sponges. Two stay-at-home moms in Encinitas conceived of Skoy Cloths after setting out to find a better eco-friendly alternative to the 2.5 million tons of paper towls that are used annually. They claim that using one Skoy cloth is the equivalent of 15 rolls of paper towels. When finished, the cloths can be tossed in the home compost and decompose in four weeks. They are chlorine-free and are printed with water-based colors and inks. Custom designs have a 1,000 minimum order, and can be tied in raffia in 4 packs.
$6 for a four-pack.
Give a hand to People Towel's personal hand towels.
People Towels — by People Towels
These reusable personal hand towels with inspired designs are made to reduce paper towel use. “If you carry your own cloth shopping bags, have a reusable water bottle, then why not make the switch from paper towels to People Towels to dry your hands in public facilities?” asks founder Linda Lannon. The towels are designed to help Americans adopt a habit practiced for centuries in Japan, where men and women carry a cloth with them in their pockets and purses to dry their hands in restrooms. The quick-drying, personal hand towels are made of lightweight, 100% organic, fair trade cotton and are printed with eco-friendly dyes. Lannon, who launched the company just two weeks ago, believes PeopleTowels are a small sustainable lifestyle change that everyone can do for the planet.
$25 for 5 towels. Custom designs are available for orders of 300 or more.
Mention this SF Green Weddings column and some of the companies above — like Living Ethos and Go Fresh — may be able to give you a discount on your bulk orders.
Please feel free to contact Patti with questions or to share your Greener Ever After™ tips and stories. Email: patti@greenereverafter.com Facebook: Greener Ever After Twitter: SFGreenWeddings
Comments
These are awesome ideas! Truly a great article.
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