Archive: environment

Going Green with Your Portland Child Care Center

Portland is a city known for it’s environmentally friendly trends. It’s a great place to go for green living. Why should Portland child care be any different? Children learn the basics early and daycare is a great place to start. By making your Portland child care center greener, not only are you making a great business decision, creating a healthier environment for your little ones and being kind to Mother Earth, but you’re also teaching children basic, environmentally friendly living habits that they can carry throughout their entire lives. Here are a few ways you can make your Portland child care center greener:

Get eco-healthy air.

Make sure children at your care center are breathing fresh air by taking a few safety precautions. First, do not allow smoking anywhere near the building that your care center sits in. Even outside in your parking lot isn’t a good idea. Try hanging some no smoking signs around the entire property. You can also ask parents not to leave their cars running while they drop off their children. Leaving a car running in idle creates unnecessary exhaust pollution. Make sure your space is entirely free of any type of dust or mold. Not only do both cause severe issues for children with allergies or asthma, but some types of mold can even be deadly. Ditch chemical-based air fresheners for non-toxic essential oils. With these simple steps, children at your Portland child care center will be breathing the freshest air possible.

Invest in greener art supplies.

Many art supplies on the market contain toxic chemicals. The good news is that a lot of the mainstream brands are already onto the importance of this and have removed these dangerous chemicals from their supplies. That said, you should always be careful, especially when buying paint, clay and glue. Keep an eye out for the non-toxic stamps of approval: AP, AP New, AP + PC, CL, CP, HL/CR and HL/NT at http://www.acminet.org. You can also avoid ingestion of these dangerous materials by making it a rule that everyone has to wash their hands thoroughly after doing any kind of art project.

Keep the playground fresh and safe.

An environmentally friendly playground may be tougher to come by than you think. For three decades, playground wood was treated with toxic preservatives containing arsenic. This use stopped in 2003, but if you have a wooden playground that was built before then, you should consider rebuilding or, at the very least, covering the equipment with paint or sealant to reduce exposure.

Sources:

–Healthy Child

–Eco-Healthy Child Care 

Extreme Parenting: The No Impact Man on Green Living with Kids

Colin Beavan and his family spent one year trying to take the term “green” to the extreme. By the time his book was finished and the documentary had launched, the No Impact Man had lived without electricity, a car or even throwaway diapers- not an easy feat with a toddler running around. Now, a few years after No Impact Man launched, Colin still strives to live as environmentally as possible. He is a vegetarian, an avid biker and has an apartment completely furnished with second hand furniture. He also heads NoImpactProject.org, a site dedicated to helping people get involved in the environmental agenda. Colin spends time visiting colleges and schools, publicly speaking about environmental issues and lifestyle. He’s also working on a book about how to live a life that’s both better for humans and the planet, which is set to hit shelves near the end of the 2013. MomTrusted talked to Colin about his environmental experiment and how any family can lead a greener life.

MomTrusted: Can you summarize the documentary and book No Impact Man?

Colin Beavan: It was a year in which my family and I lived as environmentally as possible in the middle of New York City. When I say that we lived as environmentally as possible, it wasn’t about making sure we did the recycling, but, for example, not making any trash at all or using a more efficient vehicle and actually trying to make no carbon emission through our transportation at all. We worked in all the areas from trash to consumption to travel to household operation, trying to live for a year making as little impact as possible.

MomTrusted: What were you hoping to gain?

Colin: I needed to ask this question: Is it possible to live doing more good than harm, environmentally speaking? Also does the modern, consumer lifestyle actually make us happy or is it possible that there’s a way of life that’s both better for us and better for the planet?

MomTrusted: What were the added challenges of doing this experiment with a toddler?

Colin: For one thing, she was in diapers and so obviously we couldn’t use throwaway diapers. We went on to cloth ones.

But I think that having a toddler made it easier in a lot of ways because I came to see everything through her eyes. For example, one time I went to pick her up from childcare and we were on our way home in pouring rain. She was riding my shoulders. I had an umbrella and I was struggling to keep the umbrella over her. Obviously in New York City, it’s hard to get a taxi when it’s raining, but if you can’t get in a taxi because you’re leading an environmental life experiment there seem to be lots of empty cabs around.

So we’re walking along, it’s pouring rain and I’m wrestling with the umbrella in the rain. The wind would blow and Isabella would start crying and the rain would hit her. I said, “I’m trying to keep you dry.” Then I realized she wasn’t crying when the wind blew the umbrella off of her. She was crying when I was keeping the umbrella over her because she wanted to feel the rain. So I took the umbrella down, we got soaking wet and splashed our way home. I thought, “What have we come to that we struggle to not feel the elements?”

In a lot of ways she wasn’t an extra challenge, but made it easier.

MomTrusted: How do you explain the concept of going green to your children?

Colin: It doesn’t need much explaining as far as the kids are concerned. For example, if you say to a kid, “So this is how our energy system works: What we do is we find a nice mountain and we blow the top off of it. We harvest the coal out of the mountain and, while we do that, we actually make it so that all the drinking water for the people down stream from the mountain becomes poison. So the people can’t drink the water anymore. Then we take the coal from the mountain and we throw it in a big fire and make electricity. When we burn that coal, it pumps this poison called carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and starts to make the planet warmer. It makes it harder for a bunch of species to survive and could actually make it harder for us as human beings to survive.” Now when you tell that story to children, usually they think, “What the hell is wrong with you grownups?”

So when it comes to explaining stuff, kids get it really well. It’s the grownups that have a hard time getting it.

MomTrusted: What advice would you give to a family interested in leading a more environmentally friendly lifestyle?

Colin: Look for those areas that are more environmental and help the family at the same time. For example, if the family is concerned about their diet, moving toward a non-processed, plant-based diet is good for the family and is good for the environment.  If the family’s concerned about not getting enough exercise, then look into ways that actually use your body to transport yourself. If money is an issue, conserve energy around the home. Move toward things that would actually improve your life.

New Year’s Resolution: Go Green as a Family

As 2012 comes to an end and you start brainstorming ways to improve in 2013, consider this: What if your family came together to live a greener lifestyle? Not only will many of these ideas positively impact the environment and help your family, but they’ll teach your children about the importance of the environment, eating right and keeping fit. Consider a few of these green options for a fresh start to a new year:

Choose two wheels over four.

Opt for your bike over your car whenever possible. Not only will you save on gas, reduce your carbon imprint and get some exercise, but biking as a family is just plain fun. If school or work is too far, you can still consider running errands on two wheels. Have really little ones? Purchase a bike with a seat on the back or a children’s bike trailer. Don’t forget helmets for everyone!

Garden together.

Get outside, teach your little ones some biology 101 and grow ingredients for a healthy meal in a family garden. Try letting each family member pick out his or her favorite veggie or fruit to grow. This will teach children responsibility by having at least one plant that they’re accountable for and ensure that the family garden has everyone’s favorite snack.

Start a compost pile.

What better way to add some fresh fertilizer to your new garden than by creating a mini compost pile of your own? You can purchase bins for your kitchen, but there are also backyard options that will help keep the mess out of your home.

Ask your kids to help you with recycling.

Little ones love sorting. Ask your kids to help separate paper from plastic. This is also a great time to explain the importance of being kind to the environment.

Lower your energy use.

Keep your home cool in the winter and warm in the summer. For each degree that you use AC to lower the temperature in your home, your average energy cost rises by 6%. Metro Family Magazine recommends using fans on low in the winter to spread warmth throughout the house. Make sure they rotate clockwise, which will pull rising heat from the ceiling and better disperse it.

Plant a tree.

Did you know that nearly half of our original forest habitat has been cut down in the past 60 years? We’ve all wasted our fair share of paper or secretly hoped that a new shopping mall would go up close by.  Give back to the earth a little by planting a family tree. Not only will you be bettering the environment, but you can watch the tree and your children grow together.

Sources:

-“Going Green as a Family.” Going Green

-“How to Help Your Family Go Green.” Wiki How

-“Tree Deforestation Statistics.” Statistic Brain

-“Practical Pointers for Going Green.” Metro Family Magazine

-Photo courtesy of Sujin Jetkasettakorn/freedigitalphotos.net