Green Parent Chicago™

Reading the Labels, What to Consider in Personal Care for Kids

Perhaps you closely read the labels on food and beverages that your family consume. If so, you may be equally selective in choosing the types of personal care products you use on yourself and/or your children too.

But navigating the seemingly endless aisles of soaps, creams, bath products, shampoos and other personal care products targeted for babies and children can be a dizzying chore even for the most dedicated shoppers.

If you ever wished for a handy list of personal care product ingredients to avoid, the Environmental Working Group, (the folks who brought you the "Dirty Dozen" produce fridge magnet and list) have also created a guide to download and print for the times when you're shopping for bath products, toothpaste, baby wipes and shampoos for your kids. Click this link below to download and view/print it:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/special/parentsguide/EWG_parentsguide.pdf

Now, lest parents think this is just alarmist stuff, aimed at convincing them otherwise about using their own common sense, check out the first three of EWG's four top tips:

1. Use fewer products and use them less 
frequently.
2. Don’t trust the claims. Check ingredients.
3. Buy fragrance-free products.

That's advice most people could agree would do a child's skin well, not to mention your family's budget. The EWG full database is available online with the group's best and better picks selected from various brands to give you some ideas to start off with.

Remember, while many of the personal care products listed in the database are natural, some "natural" or botanical ingredients can trigger allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. So be sure to use any product sparingly when switching to a new brand to make sure your child's skin reacts fine to it.

EarthTalk: Can Insulating Paints Help Save Energy? Are They Safe?

Dear EarthTalk: Do insulating paints actually insulate and save energy? If they do, are they environmentally friendly to use?-- Bob Dibrindisi, Easthampton, MA

Paint additives that claim insulating qualities have been marketed since the late 1990s, but energy research organizations have not confirmed their insulating value. For its part, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not recommend using paints or coatings in place of traditional bulk insulation. “We haven’t seen any independent studies that can verify their insulating qualities,” the agency reports.

The federal government does rate roofing paint for its energy efficiency, but such findings only take into account a substance’s ability to reflect heat off the roof—not its insulating properties per se—to keep the building cooler.

Green Kids Activities at the Taste of Chicago

Taste of Chicago, the city's most popular food and entertainment festival begins today for its 29th year and will run until Sunday July 5 in Grant Park.

Though some Chicagoans may skip the lines, the crowds (an estimated 6 million annually) and the higher prices of restaurant offerings at the Taste, there is still plenty of free entertainment for kids and families once again. This year many of the activities have an outdoor or green theme.

A few of the fun green things to see and do at the Taste's Family Village include:

Activities hosted by the Museum of Science and Industry, Purple Asparagus, Soul Vegetarian East, The Little Environmentalists, Mayor Daley's Bicycling Ambassadors, Working Bikes Cooperative, University of Illinois Extension and Alliance for the Great Lakes.

A full schedule of activities for each day can be found on the Family Village page of the event's website. The Family Village is located at the southwest corner of Columbus and Jackson. All entertainment and kids activities are free.

Information on street closures, how to pre-purchase food and beverage tickets before you get to the fest, food and beverage ticket prices and a list of prohibited items can be found on the event's FAQ page.

-photo credit: gotham24, flickr

The Biodiversity of Play

*Editor's note: Today we are very pleased to welcome guest writer, Kellen Marshall-Gillespie:

It is extremely important as environmentally aware parents that we all consider the values and lessons we are teaching our children. It is not only environmental efforts that will save the earth but a collective effort among all ethnicities and species as well. Sometimes we are comfortable knowing a particular group of people and we create a unrealistic point of view biased by race, class, religion and or economics.  

The cultural divide can be bridged through play by creating diverse opportunities for our children.  These can include church oriented programs, community outreach, and volunteering with other organizations around various ethnicities. Instead of pretending that our children live in a world where everything is equal it is about time that we learn how to play with our kids in a way that shows them how to play and love all things and people. 

The biodiversity of play can enrich our children’s perspectives on life and the world around them.  If we want our children to love the earth, we first have to show them how to love, respect and listen to each other.

–Kellen Marshall-Gillespie mom of 3 is an entrepreneur, author, aspiring film maker and pursuing her Ph.D in ecology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As a native Chicagoan she is dedicated to not only her family but to educating and empowering the urban communities on the wonders of the earth and the environment.

Finding the Right Bike Options with Kids

My summer of biking has gotten off to a great start, and many of the errands I used to make by car I now make on my bike---the grocery store, the farmer’s market, the drug store, out for a cappuccino, and even day trips to the local farm. It’s been a fairly smooth transition for me, but it’s been less easy to convert my 6-year-old daughter to this new way of life.

It’s not that she doesn’t want to join me. In fact, she loves it. She is easily carsick and generally hates the confines of her booster seat, so she is almost always happy to jump on her bike and accompany me on an afternoon on two wheels. But she’s half my size, so she gets tired more easily, rides slower, and needs to stop a lot more often than I do. Errands will either take twice as long as they would or I need to cut the number of errands I’ve planned in half.

It’s tempting to save my trips for times when I’m not with her, but I refuse to do that. I want her to appreciate the bike as a practical and fun way to get around town. So I need an alternative that will help me keep the promise I’ve made to keep the car parked and not give in to the convenience of driving for more and more trips.

Unfortunately, there aren’t that many alternatives. There’s a covered trailer that fits either one or two kids and generally up to 100 pounds that you pull along the back of the bike. My daughter is getting too big for that style of trailer, and even if she could fit, she is worries about looking babyish and refuses to sit in them. Still, they are an excellent and ubiquitous option for younger kids.

EarthTalk: When Solar Powers An Entire Community

 

Dear EarthTalk: I know of solar power systems that people can put on their roofs to generate electricity or heat water. Are there systems that serve whole neighborhoods? -- Lee Helscel, via email

Collective bargaining is a good strategy when looking to get the best price on a given product or service. Solar power is no exception, and dozens of neighborhood-wide installations in the U.S. and Canada have created a new model whereby going solar can actually start to pencil out for individual homeowners.

One of the first neighborhood-wide solar installations in the world was at the master-planned community of Drake Landing in the town of Okotoks in Alberta, Canada. The entire community, now with more than 50 homes built and occupied, is heated by a neighborhood-wide “borehole thermal energy” system designed to store abundant solar energy underground during the summer and distribute it to each home as needed for space heating throughout the winter. The system, which launched in June 2007, now fulfills some 90 percent of each home’s space heating needs, with any slack taken up by fossil fuels.

Recycled Craft: Make Your Own Museum

No matter how much you try to recycle or buy products with less packaging, there are going to be moments when you'll wind up with a few extra plastic, glass or styrofoam containers laying about. Perhaps they have an interesting size or are made up of a difficult to recycle material.

A small cabinet above our kitchen sink at home has been filling up with a variety of these containers for several months now. Though I've attempted to organize the lids separately and nest the small ones inside the larger ones, there are only so many things to be done with old yogurt containers. When I found myself contemplating how to to contain my containers, I knew that it was time to get creative.

Over these same several months, my two kids have amassed a size-able collection of artifacts from their time spent outdoors. They have seeds, seed pods, shells, rocks of varying types, fossil casts, bark, sticks, feather and more. Until now, we'd always kept these items stuffed in a small basket, which never really did them justice and just served to keep them from being examined more closely once brought home. Recently after I realized I needed a better solution to my storage problem, we spent some time making our own "museum" and the kids cataloged the items and sorted them.

We used those unwanted plastic jars and boxes, glass jars, cans and trays and turned them into repositories for the artifacts. My eldest son then labeled them and lined them up on our windowsill for display. There they sit for examination anytime and they are neatly arranged and add a sort of decorative effect to our bare white windows.

Your own museum need not be only a nature museum, it could have any theme, or consist of a collection of toys, or other "precious artifacts" deemed most suitable by their young owner. Your ideas are only limited to the number of containers you can collect. 

-Christine

Urgent Appeal for Food Help in Your Community

Though summer in Chicago is the time for great optimism as the city comes alive with festivals, music and activities, some families who rely on meal programs through their child's school may be faced with the need to find adequate nutrition for their children now that school is not in session.

Now is the time to donate to your local food pantry and assist the agencies that help combat child hunger in your city and community.

The economic strain is already putting many local food pantries under stress as Jason George recently reported in The Chicago Tribune.

"During the school year that ended Friday, about 84 percent of Chicago public school students received free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches, meaning that with summer's arrival, nearly 342,000 children are no longer receiving the meals each day in their school cafeterias.

Given those numbers and the weak economy, local food pantries fear a need will appear this summer in Chicago like never before."

"It's definitely an issue that food pantries have talked about for a long time. But this year, it could be a more pronounced issue," said Bob Dolgan, spokesman for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which reported a 36 percent increase in overall demand this year.

Pantry Director LaVerne Morris of St. Columbanus Church Pantry, one of the city's largest, located at 71st Street and Calumet Avenue said in the article that the number of families and young children the pantry serves is rising.

"We all think this is a situation 'over there.' But it's not there -- it's on your block," said Morris, who noted that in the last year, the pantry has doubled the amount of households it helps each week, from 250 to 500, and that many of the families now come carting young children.

A recent letter received on my local community's message board from Monica Dillon, RN and Director of Health and Human Services for Howard Area Community Center, displays this pressing need:

"During the month of April 2009, the Howard Area Community Center Food Pantry assisted 739 individuals and 298 families with emergency food. These are the highest numbers of clients served in one month in the history of the 40 year old food pantry.

Last Thursday, our shelves were near empty.

If you or a family member belong to a book club, fitness center, congregation, school, scout troop, block club or any other organization looking for a project, consider sponsoring a food drive for the Howard Area Food Pantry."

Here is Dillon's list of the center's needs and suggestions, but all healthy foods are appreciated. They are always in need of Dominick's and/or Jewel gift cards for clients on physician - prescribed therapeutic diets.

Food Waste Is A Serious Problem – Do Something About It At Home

This is what I saw several weeks ago when I went to clean up breakfast. Wasted food. I am sure you are wondering why six or seven bites of bread crumbs really makes a difference, right? It makes a difference when you understand that a few bites of bread is just the beginning of a giant problem we have here in the United States: food waste!

According to Food Production Daily (FPD), Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and an expert on food loss, says that American households waste nearly 14 percent of their food purchases.

FPD goes on to say, “Fifteen per cent of that [waste] includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.”

Amazingly, FPD says, “household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion.” Imagine how eliminating as much food waste as you can might help our environmental problems. “Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.”

With our economy in the dumps, it makes more sense than ever to SAVE MONEY as well as save food waste. It makes more sense than ever that parents must take on the firm responsibility to educate children about how to live more conservatively. They will learn good habits and maybe when they grow up they will be able to support themselves through difficult times because they have this knowledge.

My eight year old and I had a little talk about her bread crust plate and she agreed to only take what she can eat on to her plate and promised not to waste food in the future. Is it perfect? No. I waste, she wastes, we all are relearning that there is a better way to live which saves money and the earth. At least we are trying one small step at a time.

Help your children understand food waste and sustainability – a lesson learned at home with family will last a lifetime!

-Shawna Lee Coronado is an author, locally syndicated newspaper columnist, health, and greening expert focused on teaching and living a green lifestyle. She blogs on conservation, greening and health tips at www.gardeningnude.com. Information on her books and other media can be found at www.thecasualgardener.com.

This is what I saw several weeks ago when I went to clean up breakfast. Wasted food. I am sure you are wondering why six or seven bites of bread crumbs really makes a difference, right? It makes a difference when you understand that a few bites of bread is just the beginning of a giant problem we have here in the United States: food waste!

According to Food Production Daily (FPD), Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the UA Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and an expert on food loss, says that American households waste nearly 14 percent of their food purchases.

FPD goes on to say, “Fifteen per cent of that [waste] includes products still within their expiration date but never opened. Jones estimates an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year, just in meat, fruits, vegetables and grain products.”

Amazingly, FPD says, “household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion.” Imagine how eliminating as much food waste as you can might help our environmental problems. “Jones estimates that reducing food waste by half could reduce adverse environmental impacts by 25 percent through reduced landfill use, soil depletion and applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.”

With our economy in the dumps, it makes more sense than ever to SAVE MONEY as well as save food waste. It makes more sense than ever that parents must take on the firm responsibility to educate children about how to live more conservatively. They will learn good habits and maybe when they grow up they will be able to support themselves through difficult times because they have this knowledge.

My eight year old and I had a little talk about her bread crust plate and she agreed to only take what she can eat on to her plate and promised not to waste food in the future. Is it perfect? No. I waste, she wastes, we all are relearning that there is a better way to live which saves money and the earth. At least we are trying one small step at a time.

Help your children understand food waste and sustainability – a lesson learned at home with family will last a lifetime!

-Shawna Lee Coronado is an author, locally syndicated newspaper columnist, health, and greening expert focused on teaching and living a green lifestyle. She blogs on conservation, greening and health tips at www.gardeningnude.com. Information on her books and other media can be found at www.thecasualgardener.com.

Bike to Work Week Begins Saturday

Chicago businesses will compete to win the Bike Commuter Challenge as Bike to Work Week begins this weekend and runs until June 19 across the city.

Each company entering the challenge will try to get the most employees to bike to work during this period. Each employee must bike to work at least once between June 13 and June 19. Companies will be categorized by number of employees and general industry.

In addition to the prestige of promoting a green and healthy lifestyle in Chicagoland, the winning companies from each category will receive prizes from Bike Commuter Challenge sponsors. All participants receive bike maps, bike shop discount cards and bike to work guides, and are entered into raffles for sponsor-donated prizes.

Each company's Bike To Work Challenge team leaders will be honored at an Annual Awards Luncheon in July in downtown Chicago, and will receive a special Team Leader tech-fabric T-shirt.

Bike to Work Week is part of Bike Chicago 2009, a five month long celebration of Chicago’s commitment to become more bicycle friendly and environmentally conscious.

Also during the week, several Bike Commuter Stations will offer riders free air, chain lube and coffee.  The Bike to Work Rally will end the week on Friday, June 19, there riders can join fellow cyclists, local media celebrities, live bands and the City of Chicago at Daley Plaza for a day of activities beginning at 7:30 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. 

-For more information and details on Bike Chicago 2009, call (312) 744-3315, (312) 744-3370  or visit www.bikechicago.us and on Facebook (Bike Chicago).

-photo credit: www.bikechicago.us