Eco-friendly yoga mats

hippyshopper points us to a new option for yoga mats. In truth it had occurred to me that the bright purple mat I use for Pilates seemed a little, shall we say, shiny and synthetic. And so it is. These yoga mats are natural and even biodegradable, which conjures up images for me of doing yoga in the woods and then just leaving your mat there to be absorbed by the forest around it. But then, I'm a bit strange.

My only question is how much the store selling them, yogamatters.com, charges to ship to the US?

Comments

[Mollie]

I have been doing yoga for a long time now, I am getting certified to become a yoga instructor (I'm very excited!), and I care about the environment; so, these eco-friendly yoga mats sound perfect for me. Do you happen to know how durable they are? Also, do you know of any places that sell nice looking, organic yoga clothes? It would be preferable if their name and logo wasn't plastered all over it. Branding and the practice of yoga don't really mesh in my world.

[Jennifer Kubina]

I got some great organic cotton (and a little lycra) yoga clothes from www.gaiam.com. I also like the exercise clothes that I have gotten from Patagonia. I'm with you when it comes to advertisements on my clothes. Both these brands have inconspicous labels.
Hope this helps!

[Elisa Camahort]

I've never tried this kind of mat, so I'm not sure about their durability. I think there's jute involved, which is typically fairly strong.

As for yoga clothes, you can always try the selection at hip & zen.
http://hipandzen.com/collections-yoga.html

And if you use the code BLOG you get an additional 5% off the whole order. Some of the stuff has no real logo placement, some have peace signs or dragonflies. etc

[h]

http://www.greenyoga.org/ is the ecoMat distributor in the US, so that'd cut down on shipping charges.

cheers

[kat]

There's another mat made with some eco-friendly foam (i think this is new).

http://www.wailana.com/yogastore/product.php?pid=518

Anyone tried the two and can compare?

[Karen Clothier]

Actually I can't believe how hard it is to find eco-friendly yoga mats, given how socially conscious yogis usually are. I found this one right under our noses - don't know if anyone out there has tried them - they're PVC and latex-free from Earth Elements and are available at http://www.huggermugger.com/productDetailServlet?M_ProductStoreCategory_ID=1000145. Please give us feedback if you try any of these options - there are a lot of yogis out there looking for these things...

[Yoga Trader]

We offer eco friendly yoga mats made of natural rubber, with carbon offsets for their manufacture and distribution. I haven't seen the mats mentioned above though - nice find.