Mom Goes Green

Inevitably, if you have children in school, there’s bound to be a fundraising event that means your child brings home the “ever-popular-request-for-donations”.

Last week our daughter’s school had their annual Spring Fest to raise money to support their land lab.  This area in front of their school has gardens, walking paths, trees and a pond and it’s an amazing little “earth” educational site for our kids.

So, guess what I received prior to the event?  You guessed it… that “ever-popular-request-for-donations”!  They were going to hold raffles to win gift baskets and needed families to donate items.  So, a few seconds of wearing my thinking-cap made me realize that this was an opportunity to make a green statement.

Our family put together a basket that included reusable bags, CFLs, a stainless steel reusable water bottle and green cleaners.  Instead of using an actual basket, we put it all inside a cardboard box wrapped it in brown paper and included shredded paper (all recyclable) for a little extra flair!  I think it looked pretty cute!

We completed our mission by including a paper that explained everything in the box and why they are important.  We were really proud of our creativity that really didn’t require any creativity at all.  To us they’re “no brainers”, but they sent a wonderful message and hopefully made an impact for everyone that took a look.

The next time you receive that “request”, consider the statement you can make too. And a basket like this would also make a great gift!

Little did I know my friend, Jasmina, would win the basket (and she’s already a fellow “eco-mama!), but it was rewarding to see all the other families interested in winning some “green” too!

(Mom Goes Green is EXHAUSTED from chaperoning a Girl Scout Brownies weekend camping trip… {where do they get that energy and the ability to function on such little sleep?!?} so today’s post is by guest writer Janelle Sorensen.  Today is National Healthy Schools Day… enjoy the great info!)

When my husband and I first toured schools to find the one we wanted to enroll our daughter in, I’m sure I was silently voted one of the strangest parents ever. Why do I feel I was secretly endowed with this title? Because every room and hallway we were taken through, I sniffed. A lot. And, according to my husband, I wasn’t terribly discreet.

I didn’t have a cold or postnasal drip. And, I’m not part bloodhound. I was simply concerned about the indoor air quality. My daughter was (and still is) prone to respiratory illnesses and I wanted to be sure the school she would be attending would support and protect her growing lungs (in addition to her brain). For many air quality issues, your nose knows, so I was using the easiest tool I had to gauge how healthy the environment was.

While air quality is a significant issue in schools (the EPA estimates that at least half of our nation’s 120,000 schools have problems), parents are also increasingly concerned about other school health issues like nutrition and the use of toxic pesticides. Many schools are making the switch to healthier and more sustainable practices like green cleaning, least toxic pest management, and even school gardening. What they’re finding is that greening their school improves the health and performance of students and personnel, saves money (from using less energy, buying fewer products, and having fewer worker injuries among other things), and also helps protect the planet. It’s truly win, win, win.

To highlight the issue, the Healthy Schools Network coordinates National Healthy Schools Day.  This year, over three dozen events will be held across the country (and more in Canada) on April 27th to promote and celebrate healthy school environments.

What can you do? Healthy Schools Network recommends simple activities such as:

• Adopting Guiding Principles of School Environmental Quality as a policy for your School
• Distributing information related to Green Cleaning or Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)
• Writing a letter or visiting your Principal or Facility Director to ask about cleaning products or pest control products
• Walking around your school: looking for water stains, cracks in outside walls, broken windows or steps, and overflowing dumpsters that are health & safety problems that need attention. Use this checklist.
• Writing a Letter to the Editor of your local paper on the importance of a healthy school to all children and personnel

You can also help support the efforts of states trying to pass policies requiring schools to use safer cleaners. (Or, initiate your own effort!) There are good bills pending in Connecticut, Minnesota, California, Massachusetts, and Oregon. According to Claire Barnett, Executive Director of the Healthy Schools Network, the key pieces to promote on green cleaning in schools are:

• Not being fooled by ‘green washing’ claims—commercial products must be third-party certified as green (to verify claims)
• Understanding that green products are cost-neutral and they work
• Learning that “Clean doesn’t have an odor.”

She encourages parents and personnel to tune into one of the archived webinars on green cleaning (like the first module for general audiences) at www.cleaningforhealthyschools.org.

The fact of the matter is that whether you’re concerned about the quality of food, cleaning chemicals, recycling, or energy use – schools need our help and support. Instead of complaining about what’s wrong, it’s time to help do what’s right – for our children, our schools, and our planet.

What are you going to do? There are so many ideas and resources. Find your passion and get active on April 27th – National Healthy Schools Day.

Additional Resources:

• Creating Healthy Environments for Children (DVD): A short video with easy tips for schools and a variety of handouts to download and print.
• Getting Your Child’s School to Clean Green: A blog I wrote last year with advice based on my experience working with schools.
• Healthy Community Toolkit: Healthy Child Healthy World’s tips and tools for being a successful community advocate and some of our favorite organizations working on improving child care and school environments and beyond.
• The Everything Green Classroom Book: The ultimate guide to teaching and living green and healthy.

(Thanks, Janelle!  Visit Healthy Child Healthy World for more great resources and information! — MGG)

I’m on the board of our son’s preschool and this year I got them to start recycling at his school for the first time.  I am also Recycling/Environmental Programs Chair at our daughter’s school and have started a number of programs this year, but I’m doing a lousy job.

Perhaps I’m being a little tough on myself, because I do believe I’ve done a lot of good, but I realize that there are a lot of opportunities that I’ve missed, or have been an afterthought, when I should have been more pro-active.  (So, yes… Earth to Mom!)

The reason for my own, harsh, self-criticism was from attending our daughter’s school’s Family Fun Night of bingo last week.  I wasn’t a part of the planning committee and for a change, I didn’t volunteer so I could enjoy the night with my family.  But in the process, I completely overlooked something that I was responsible for… recycling.

Fortunately, someone had the foresight to set up a bin for can recycling, but then I looked around at the tables and saw stacks and stack of used paper bingo cards that were destine for the trash can.  I was sickened that I never even though about this event and my responsibility.  So, I jumped up, went to the concession tables and asked for a box.  Then I asked the bingo caller to please announce that all used cards should be deposited in the box after the families were finished with them.  Everyone was so great to cooperate and we actually walked out with a large box filled with paper cards.

How did I overlook that?  What was I thinking?  (What WASN’T I thinking!!!)   Sure, it was remedied before it was truly forgotten, but we all have the opportunity NOT to miss these opportunities!  Whether you’re a parent at a school where you can encourage recycling, or work in an office that doesn’t recycle or belong to an organization that needs some help getting started, we can introduce practices that really make a huge difference in the long run.

Note-to-self:  Recycling opportunities exist in EVERY circumstance… don’t miss an opportunity!

This year, as Recycling & Environmental Programs Chairman at our daughter’s school, I helped the kids put together two of the most beautiful Christmas trees I think I have ever seen…

They AREN’T filled with tinsel, or a thousand lights, or shimmering bulbs or expensive decorations.  In fact, not a single thing cost a single penny.  It was decorated entirely with recycled ornaments and decorations made by the students.  And what a splendor it is!!!

These kids are amazing… for their creativity and the way they hold their heads so high at the display of their ornament, made with love… and with love for planet earth too!

There were gingerbread men made from sandpaper and scrap materials, reindeer made from burned-out light bulbs, candy canes made from plastic bottle caps and snowmen made from Styrofoam packing materials.  Handsoap containers, applesauce cups and toilet paper rolls were given new life!  And the top of the trees were adorned with a green star with a sparkling “recycle” symbol glittering in the middle!

One of my favorites was from a family that assembled an amazing garland made from accordion-folded Christmas circulars, aluminum foil beads and used straws.  Imagine the love that went into making that… and the amazing “family time” they all got to share too.

A Christmas Tree really becomes a Christmas Tree NOT when it’s decorated like a department store window display – it becomes a true Christmas tree when the spirit of “giving” turns into the spirit of “not taking” more and more from new resources – when they are decorated with the love of what a tree really represents…

Saturday is “America Recycles Day”… a day that ‘encourages more people to join the movement toward creating a better natural environment by recycling and buying recycled products’ and ‘promotes the social, environmental and economic benefits of recycling.’

A very worthwhile cause, I’d say!

As the Recycling/Environmental Programs Chair at our daughter’s school I’m promoting this great day by encouraging the kids to submit their best recycling tips and the favorite ways their families recycle.   I’m going to compile all of their great ideas and turn it into a recycling newsletter that will be sent home to each family.  Some will even win cool prizes, like a recycled pencil bag from Terracycle! The response has been overwhelming!  It’s so exciting to see their enthusiasm.  Kids rule!

So, to get back to the basics of this day… let’s remember WHY we recycle:

• to reduce pollution
• to save energy
• to help the environment
• to save natural resources
• to keep trash out of landfills

And here are some things to think about …

1. PLASTIC– it can take 20 years for a plastic bag to biodegrade and 250 years for a plastic cup!  And if every American household recycled just one of every 10 plastic bottles, it would keep 200 million pounds of plastic out of landfills each year!
2. PAPER – it accounts for HALF of what is sent to landfills… and it’s recyclable! Plus, recycling one ton of paper would save enough energy to power an average American home for five months!
3. ALUMINUM – recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a computer for 3 hours.  Last year cans that were NOT recycled and went to landfills were valued at $600 million! (let me go get my shovel and start digging!)
4. GLASS – a bottle in a landfill would take more than 4000 years to decompose, but glass never “wears out” and can be recycled forever!

Sadly, 75% of “trash” is recyclable, but only 25% actually gets recycled.

So get recycling, increase your recycling, start someone you know recycling… just get to it!… because “America Recycles” and that’s a club all of us should want to belong to!

One of my greatest frustrations is when I feel like I’m fighting the green battle against people I feel a bond with.  Whether it’s family, friends or groups I associate with, it can be really difficult to be the wave maker… well, I’m about to battle… enter: waves!

Our daughter brought home a letter from school that announced a special school program focusing on proper nutrition and making healthy food choices.  Sounded like a great program to me!  They’re setting aside a day where students can sample healthy foods and snacks. Still, a big thumbs up!

Then, I got to the part that asked for parent participation.  They asked for volunteers to send in apples (okay!), granola bars (can do!) or bottled water (no!  Say it isn’t so!)

So, while we’re teaching 400 kids about eating properly, we can give them a chaser of BPA laced water and bottles that will go into the school’s trash cans and create our very own space in a landfill.  Augh, I think I’m going to scream.

Now (since I am the Recycling/Environmental Programs Chair)  I get to contact all those in charge and ask “why” and “what can we do?”  I hate these confrontations, but I have to do it.  I’m expecting that “convenience” is the reason, so I will probably have to be content with the idea of pushing for a special bottle receptacle.  Sadly, we don’t have a plastics recycling program in the school.  It’s something I’m working for, but we aren’t there yet.  (You wouldn’t believe what it takes to get something so simple in place).

So, as I sit here, I’m preparing my approach to people that are trying to teach the right nutritional choices, but using bad environmental choices.  I have no idea how this is going to end up, but I don’t like where it’s starting!

I can see it now… Wednesday recycling pick-up is going to be crazy at my house after I lug 400 plastic bottles home and they later come flying out of my recycling can… and my neighbor’s…and the neighbor’s next to them….

Recently I talked about being on the Boards of both of our kids’ schools. I was mortified that our son’s Preschool didn’t even recycle.

Well, the Preschool Board is on board! The teachers agreed to implement recycling in the classroom and one of the Moms picked up the curbside recycling receptacles from the city for me. We are good to go! Now all I need to do is get something for the classrooms to collect our recycling before it goes curbside.

Youth is the most critical time for earth-friendly practices to be instilled in our little ones. It’s a great lesson for the kids and a wonderful habit to recycle. Kid recyclers turn into adult recyclers.

And if all goes well, every one of them will go home and hassle their parents to make sure their family is doing the same! Step #1 in “School Challenge” accomplished. Only dozens and dozens of steps to go!!!

This fall our son heads off to Preschool and our daughter will be in 1st Grade…wait a minute….hello? How did I get here? Where did my babies go???

I thought I was still young and cool, but yeah….probably not so much. Last week I looked at my outfit and thought I was teetering on the cusp of actually looking like a PTA Mom! (*shiver!* …but please, PTA Moms, don’t email me and ask what that meant. I think we can all come up with our own explanation and accompanying visual!)

I have been invited to be on the Boards of both schools and have accepted both of those offers; however, I wonder if either of them truly knows what they have gotten themselves into. A green mom is a whole different creature than a non-green mom!

I discovered that my son’s Preschool doesn’t recycle…at all. My daughter’s Elementary school is addicted to styrofoam. (*second shiver!*) These kids ARE the future. As cliche as that sounds, it’s just a fact. We need to start instilling environmental consciousness within them NOW…our children should never look at a plastic bottle as trash. This is our opportunity! I have a lot of work to do, and plenty of minds and policies to change.

THIS, my friends, is going to be my newest challenge…and oh, what a challenge it will be!

photo by: Wesley Fryer