Greening Baby
by Beth Gray
Babies are cute and snuggly and just the sight of a baby can bring a smile to most peoples’ faces. Babies are also expensive and create tremendous volumes of waste as any parent will tell you. By one estimate, “over his/her lifetime, each American born in the 1990s will produce an average of 3.1 million pounds of CO2,” the equivalent of 413 plane trips from New York to Tokyo. American children in particular tend to have a greater impact on the environment than other children around the world. For example, “one American child generates as much CO2 as 106 Haitian kids.” There are several ways to reduce the impact your bundle of joy will have on the planet, however.
New parents quickly get the hang of diapering their baby perhaps because they do it so often. Ninety-six percent of American babies wear disposable diapers while only six percent of Chinese and only two percent of Indian babies wear them. It takes a disposable diaper 550 years to decompose, a staggering length of time especially when one considers the number of diapers that the average child goes through in a lifetime. Aside from the dramatic impact on the environment that disposable diapers cause, they are expensive. For a relatively simple and effective step toward greening your baby, try switching to cloth, reusable diapers. While they are obviously not as “user friendly” as disposable diapers and take considerably more effort and clean up on the part of mom and dad, you can save a small fortune while helping alleviate some of the strain disposable diapers put on the environment.
Along with diapers comes baby wipes. Nearly as expensive as diapers, babies can often go through twice the number of wipes as diapers. If you’re thinking of lessening baby’s impact on the environment, consider making your own baby wipes. Homemade baby wipes can be as effective as store bought ones and the process for making them is quite simple and quick.
Baby food can also create tremendous amounts of waste and leave your bank account feeling the strain of the expense. Aside from the waste and expense, food recalls can often create panic in even the most laid back parents. Many parents are now making their own baby foods to avoid all of the above mentioned problems with store bought foods. Weelicious.com is a great site featuring great recipes for making your own baby food at home. From simple one-ingredient recipes to creative combinations like Mango Banana Puree, “Catherine,” a mom of two who runs the website, provides parents with a healthy, affordable, and green alternative to store bought baby foods. Most of Catherine’s recipes can be frozen in reusable containers which mean no more glass jars to dispose of.
In the first years of baby’s life, he or she grows so quickly that some clothes never get worn before they are too small. Consignment shops and thrift stores can be a great way to save some money on baby’s clothes while helping the environment by re-using what’s already been gently worn. Another great way to save money and leave less of a footprint on the environment is to team up with other parents to swap clothes.
Today’s children are perhaps more environmentally knowledgeable than any generation prior. Once kids get to school, they quickly begin coming home and reminding their parents that the aluminum cans go into the recycling bin and not the trash can and providing other helpful lessons to encourage their own parents to be greener. By focusing on green values from infancy, parents can encourage environmental consciousness in their children which will only increase as they reach school age.
Tags: babies, disposable diapers, homemade baby wipes, Weelicious.com
