Environmentally Oriented Mail Order House Wins Praise : Commerce: Seventh Generation peddles merchandise designed to treat our planet gently. And environmental education is another aim, its owners say.

Move over, L.L. Bean.

The new guy on the block is a catalogue company that sells everything from recycled toilet paper to a $2,295 trip to the Costa Rican rain forest--and gives free birch tree seeds with every order.

Sound quirky? Its owners used to think so, but the catalogue for the environmentally conscious is winning praise from special interest groups who hope it soon will be as mainstream as the Freeport, Me., outfit.

“It’s 100% business, 100% philosophy,” said Alan Newman, co-owner of Seventh Generation, Products for a Healthy Planet. “If we are successful, we will be successful because of our ability to sell to someone who doesn’t consider themselves environmentalists.”

Jonathan Schorsch of the Council for Economic Priorities and co-author of the book “Shopping for a Better World” said that Seventh Generation is on the leading edge of a spreading movement. He said a few similar companies have sprung up on the West Coast.

“I don’t think that means buyers can be less aware,” Schorsch added. “It still requires a certain amount of homework on how green these products are.”

Seventh Generation sells biodegradable garbage bags, cleaners made of organic ingredients, beeswax crayons, organic flea powder, portable water filters, solar flashlights and energy-efficient lighting products.

Joanne Hurley of the Sierra Club applauded the company’s educational approach. The catalogue explains products and their benefits, and tells readers where to get more information.

John Rustin, an economic analyst for the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund, said that Walmart, a major retailer, has been looking for environmentally sound products to sell in its discount stores.

Newman, peering out from behind lime-green glasses and clad in jeans, a flannel shirt and Birkenstock sandals, owns the catalogue company with his pin-striped New York partner, Jeffrey Hollender.

Their styles are as different as their wardrobes--Newman’s battered address book is covered in scribbled notes; Hollender’s is columned and neatly printed. But they share a devotion to the earth.

“It’s nice to have a business that is so supportive of a philosophy I’ve had for years,” Newman said. “It’s also nice that our success is directly linked with the degree we help our customers clean up the environment.”

Seventh Generation is filling more than 1,000 orders a week and fighting a backlog. The company also has turned down 2,500 items for the catalogue.

Newman’s favorite item is the toilet paper, made from recycled paper products. Newman figures if people are brave enough to try recycled toilet paper, they have crossed a prissy line and are open to other products.

“I remember when it used to be quirky,” Newman said. “But it’s something so simple and really makes a difference. Here was something that was on its way to clog a landfill. And using it causes us to not have to cut down more trees.”

Newman and Hollender entered the project last year with a wary eye.

“I really thought the marketplace was five or eight years away, and the marketplace has a way of chewing up people who get in ahead of their time,” Newman observed.

He had been running another catalogue company and was advising the national advocacy group Renew America with its catalogue operation. Renew America decided to get out of the catalogue business.