Resources for Green Parents on Earth Day
Choose Stainless Steel, Organic or Secondhand Items to Reduce Waste
Apr 14, 2009
On April 22, people around the globe participate in Earth Day, a day to raise awareness about the health and sustainability of life on this planet. Part of a parent's responsibility to the earth is teaching children about ecology, recycling and waste, but a big part of being green is making good choices in everyday family life at home. Choosing reusable or secondhand items for homes reduces waste and can prevent toxins from entering both bodies and the ecosystem.
Reusable Stainless Steel Lunch Containers
From the time your child starts solid foods to the day they move out, parents need to provide some means for transporting food with their child when he goes to daycare, school or picnics at the park. Plastic lunch and snack containers are lightweight and durable, but many contain BPA, a chemical now recognized as potentially disruptive to the developing endocrine systems of young children. Stainless steel is a greener alternative to plastic, and is still lightweight and durable enough to survive a child's lunchbox, unlike glass jars. Check out The Tickle Trunk for affordable, high quality stainless steel products for your whole family.
Organic Cloth Diapers Reduce Landfill Waste
One of the most important ways to live a greener lifestyle at home is to reduce waste destined for the landfill. Disposable diapers make up an enormous part of the waste sent to landfills every year. Apart from taking years to degrade, diapers are often filled with human waste, which should really be treated in the sewage system instead of sitting in a landfill. Cloth diapers, while more laundry for busy parents, are a far greener choice. By choosing organic cotton diapers, baby is exposed to fewer chemicals used in the production of disposable diapers and harmful pesticides are kept out of the fields. Parenting by Nature is a great place for Canadian parents to find organic cotton diapers.
Buy Secondhand when You Can
Another big part of reducing waste is by choosing secondhand clothes, toys and gear for babies and children. If it's still in good condition, buying a used item saves the energy and resources used to produce an identical new product, and saves the old one from ending up in a landfill. In most cases, a pre-used stroller, bicycle, crib or bathing suit will last through the time your child will be able to use it, and if it's still in good condition when your child has outgrown it you can pass it on to someone else.
A couple words of caution about secondhand baby gear though: always check for recalls of the product before purchasing something secondhand, especially cribs. When it comes to buying carseats, choose a new one unless the secondhand seat is coming from someone you know and trust. If a carseat has been in a crash once before it's no longer safe to use, and there's no way to tell if this has happened by looking at the seat.
The environmental risks facing the earth right now can sometimes seem insurmountably huge, but movement towards change happens by many people making new choices in daily life. This can mean recycling your plastic containers and using stainless steel ones instead, wrapping up your baby's bottom in an organic cotton cloth instead of a chemical-filled disposable or buying your child a secondhand bicycle.
 |
