Category Archives: Eco Friendly Home

How Safe is Your Child’s Car Seat?

I saw this over on TreeHugger, and just had to go to HealthyCar.org to see for myself what the big deal is. I’m not talking about which car seats are safest in an accident. I’m talking about which have the least toxic chemicals in them. The report is quite disturbing.

A 2006 model similar to my daughter’s car seat is on their list as being one of the most toxic. They only tested the 2006 models, so I have no idea how safe my daughter’s car seat is really in terms of chemicals it may offgas. But obviously it concerns me greatly.

It may well be that I have nothing to worry about. Some of the similar models were in the mid range in terms of chemicals. Rather disappointing to so consistently see the seats by Graco (the manufacturer of my daughter’s car seat) so consistently in the mid to high range, though.

Realistically speaking, about all I can do is contact Graco to see. My daughter has about a year and a half, on a guess, before she meets California standards for not using any car seat. That’s currently 6 years and 60 pounds. She’ll be six in just under a year, but unless she has an amazing growth spurt, there’s no way she will be 60 pounds by then.

For my son, they did better, with much lower outgassing on the convertible car seats. He’s only 2, so we have a lot longer to go before he gets out of car seats.

So what do you think? Would this kind of chemical exposure concern you as a parent?

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I Love My Bread Machine!

There’s just nothing like making fresh bread at home. There’s something about knowing exactly what the ingredients are, not to mention the sheer freshness, that even the best of loaves from a grocery store can’t beat.

My current favorite wheat bread recipe I make only partially in the breadmaker. I love using the machine to mix it up, but truth be told, I hate the height of the resultant loaf. Just too tall to be easily cut. So I take the dough out and cook it as a loaf, rolls, etc., depending on what I need.

I love using the machine because I don’t often want to take the time to mix bread dough by hand. It’s hard work! And with two children, I do have better things to do with my time. I’d probably never make bread on my own without it.

One of the fun things is how much my kids love being involved in it. They love seeing the bread dough get mixed, and the love seeing it change as it rises. And of course they can eventually wash their hands and help to shape rolls. Continue reading →

Greening Up Children’s Parties

We just celebrated my daughter’s 5th birthday this past weekend. She had a crowd of classmates and cousins over; lots of fun, lots of little girls in Princess attire. But it did get me to thinking about how to keep a child’s party green yet kid fun and friendly.

We’re very much of the mind that a child’s party should be simple. We don’t plan a ton of activities, no inflatable jumper, etc. At this age children are very good at entertaining themselves. Just being together and playing with the toys we already have on hand satisfied them. As a matter of fact, the daughter of a mom who was surprised we hadn’t hired a “Princess” character for the party was apparently raving about all the fun she’d had.

We don’t theme things all that hard. This was a Princess party because we told the kids on the invitations that Princess attire was suggested. No Princess plates or decorations. Yes, we did get Princess tiaras and jewelry for the gift bags, but that’s as far as it went. Have to keep things fun for the kids, after all. Continue reading →

Your Driving Habits and the Environment

Pretty much everyone these days knows how environmentalists feel about SUVs and other large, inefficient vehicles. Many of them are used mostly to transport just one person, despite their ability to hold far more people. But even far smaller vehicles are not used terribly efficiently.

Much of this is due simply to the fact that few people live in a situation where carpooling is an easy enough option. Carpooling is a great idea, but it’s very hard to find a good carpool. You often don’t live near enough a coworker for this to be possible, never mind someone who drives close enough to your own job.

Many cities have terrible public transportation. I live in such an area myself. People don’t like to ride buses and such because it takes such an extraordinarily long time to get a lot of places. That’s not true in all places, but in enough of them.

Rising gas prices have made everyone more aware of how much driving costs. More people have been thinking about how much they drive and what they drive.

Cutting back on driving is difficult, but it can be done. I speak from experience, having spent the past several months having only one car between my husband and myself. It’s tough, but possible for us as I work at home. Continue reading →

How Bad Are Computers for the Environment?

I found this report comparing the CO2 emissions of computers with those of airplanes quite interesting. It’s not a comparison you might think of offhand, but the results are quite educational.

IT in general – that’s computers, servers and so forth – were calculated to be causing about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions. That’s the same as the estimate for airplanes.

I find those statistics very interesting, but I can’t help but think of the entire lifecycle. You know how disposable some treat their computers; getting a new machine every couple years, whether the old one works well or not. Seems like another problem to me.

But you can’t expect people to do without computers right now. I’d be in a bad spot without mine since I rely on it to earn my income. The technology is simply too important to individuals, businesses and government. Continue reading →