Archive for the ‘ Green Parenting ’ Category

1
10
Jan

Green Babies

  • 6000: The number of diapers the average baby uses before potty training.
  • 250 to 500: Years it takes petroleum-based disposable diapers to decompose.
  • 49 million: The number of disposable diapers used per day in the United States; Australia uses 2.2 million, Japan uses 6.7 million, and the U.K. uses 9 million.
  • 53 percent: A home-washed cloth diaper has only 53 percent of the ecological footprint of disposables, and a diaper laundry service has a mere 37 percent of that footprint.
  • 4 percent: Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills and represent 4% of solid waste.
  • 50 percent: The amount of waste disposable make up in a house with a child in diapers.
  • $1500 – 3000: What the average family can expect to spend on disposable diapers by the time your baby is out of them.  Depending on the diapering system you choose, cloth diapers will only cost you $200-$1000.
  • Dioxin: Listed by the EPA as the most toxic of Cancer related chemicals, banned in most countries except in the US, and is present in disposables.
  • Tributyl-tin: Also present in disposables, and a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.

Cloth diapering is just as convenient as disposables. It is one of the simplest changes we can make in our families with the largest impact to our health, environment and wallet.

  • 5 billion: The number of batteries Americans purchase each year.
  • 146,000: Tons of battery waste those 5 billion batteries leave behind each year.
  • 25 percent: the percentage of total pesticide production each year that is used on conventional cotton crops.
  • 6: The number of phthalate plasticizers banned from children’s toys by the European Union in 1999. This legislation became mandatory in 2006.
  • 1 in 3: Toys which are toxic.

Click here to see what types of toys to avoid!  Get used toys– vintage!  Kids will play with anything!  Although I would drool over those little Barbie battery-powered jeeps I’d see cruzin around, I loved my cardboard, home-made car just as much, plus I got to paint it and getting an upgrade was as easy as finding a new box!

And now for the last little statistic, which I found to be quite disturbing:

  • $1.4 billion per year: The estimated amount of money Americans spend on complicated births due to smoking while pregnant.