Eco Healthy School

How Eco Healthy is your school? From cafeteria meals to energy [...]]]> by Michelle Bexelius – founder of Eco Remedi

Eco Healthy School

How Eco Healthy is your school? From cafeteria meals to energy use to recycling efforts, your school can have a major environmental impact – and provide opportunities to teach students about healthier, more sustainable practices.

Fostering a healthy environment is crucial given that many of the nation’s schoolchildren are vulnerable to pollution: According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 50 percent of U.S. schools have indoor air-quality problems, exposing those inside to lead, asbestos, chemical fumes, pesticides, molds and other toxic substances. And researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that more than 30 percent of U.S. public schools are in “air-pollution danger zones” because of their proximity to major thoroughfares. Despite these problems, parents can work with school officials to implement policies that protect children – and the planet.

On the Road

If you live close to your school, have your child take the bus, carpool, bike or walk as often as she can to cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions from cars.

If you walk or bike with your child, you’ll improve your health while helping the environment. Get other families involved by organizing “Walk-or-Bike-to-School Days” once a month.

If you do drive, don’t idle.

Turn off your engine while waiting for your child. Encourage others to do the same by putting up a “Turn your engine off” or “Don’t idle” sign at your school’s pickup spot. The exhaust pollutes the air near your child’s school and can trigger asthma attacks, so any effort to cut down on fumes will help improve students’ health and you’ll save gas – and money.

In the Cafeteria

Healthy lunches build healthy minds.

Encourage your school to scrap the corn dogs, chicken nuggets and french fries in the cafeteria and buy from local, organic farmers. Urge your school to switch to reusable trays, flatware and recycled paper napkins.

If you’re packing your child’s lunch, opt for organic foods when possible and put filtered water in a stainless steel container. Use a lunch box that is not made with PVC. Pack waste-free meals by using reusable containers.

On the School Grounds

Create a learning garden at your school so that kids can see firsthand where healthy food comes from.

It doesn’t have to be big – a small area will do – and kids can be involved in planting, harvesting and eating the produce. Encourage your teachers to plan lessons around it.

Organize a composting committee.

This will help your school reduce its waste and provide fertilizer for the learning gardens at the same time.

Start a campaign for clean water.

Urge your school to put water filters on every drinking fountain to cut the risk of exposure to lead, arsenic and bacteria often found in water supplies.

Use environmentally friendly lighting and cleaning products.

Encourage your school to replace its incandescent lightbulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). These bulbs use about 75% less power than incandescents and last up to 10 times longer. Since CFLs contain small amounts of mercury, make sure your school knows how to properly dispose of them. Encourage your school to turn off lights when they aren’t being used. Use natural daylight as much as possible.

Encourage your school to use castile soap, which is cheaper and gets rid of germs just as effectively as soaps with antibacterial properties do. Antibacterial soaps can be harmful because they contain a dioxin chemical called triclosan, which has been known to cause liver damage and cause resistance to antibiotics.

Urge your school to use healthy cleaning products. Ask your custodians what products they use and encourage them to look into green alternatives.

Ask the grounds crew to use natural herbicides and pesticides. Children are highly susceptible to toxic pesticides sprayed on playgrounds and athletic fields because of their high metabolisms and low body weights. There are many safer pest-control alternatives.

Start a recycling program.

Place paper, plastic and aluminum recycling bins near every trash can. Encourage recycling through drives and by enrolling your school in a program that collects computer printer cartridges and used cell phones. Request that the school use 100 percent recycled paper.

At the Store

Go green when shopping for school supplies.

When purchasing backpacks, rain jackets and binders, make sure they don’t contain harmful PVC materials or fire retardants. See Green Dorms for more options.

Use recycled paper goods.

Ask your school to purchase 100% recycled paper and print lessons on both sides of the paper. Also ask for 100% recycled toilet paper, paper towels and tissues.

Michelle Bexelius is also the founder and director of Eco Kido, a nonprofit that helps schools get healthy and go green.

by Michelle Bexelius – founder of Eco Remedi

You eat organic, sometimes buy organic cotton t shirts, drive a Prius but did you know the mattress you are sleeping on could be harmful to your health?

Currently there are 80,000 chemicals on the market today that are not [...]]]>

Eco Healthy Family

by Michelle Bexelius – founder of Eco Remedi

You eat organic, sometimes buy organic cotton t shirts, drive a Prius but did you know the mattress you are sleeping on could be harmful to your health?

Currently there are 80,000 chemicals on the market today that are not approved by the FDA. These chemicals are put in to our everyday products often times without customers even knowing about because the companies don’t have to disclose every ingredient.

Kids follow your lead. The best way to get kids go green is to set a good example. They pick up on details of lives everyday entities whether you plan on it or not.  It’s a group effort to live consciously and it takes a fare dose of commitment. Don’t overwhelm your kids with the crisis the planet is in, educate them at their appropriate level.  They can’t control climate change, but they can turn off the lights when they leave a room.

Going green should be fun, informative and they should feel a sense of pride. Everyone person makes a difference and it doesn’t matter what the age of the child is to imprint that feeling of success. As a family take steps together each day to improve your surrounding environment. Teach your kids that simple things they do makes a difference.

Here are some green tips you can teach your kids:

Energy
Teach your kids to turn off the lights when they leave a room or turn on what they need. It is okay to let them know it costs money to light up the house as well as energy for the earth to produce.  Have them close the door and windows when it’s cold outside to insulate the house.

Food
Food is a great place to start thinking and eating consciously. Now there are so many choices and organic foods are more available than ever. Show your kids the quality of good, organic food that nourishes their bodies with the use of chemicals. Teach them which foods are best to buy organic or not. If you have a farm near by take your kids to show them where food comes from and have the farmer’s talk to them about their methods. Plant a family garden as well.

Water
Conserve water by turning the water off when brushing your teeth. Also get a shower timer and take shorter showers. Teach them to use what they need, even when doing the dishes or watering the lawn. Use a bath and shower filter as well to reduce the amount of chlorine in the air and on your skin.

Transportation
Encourage your kids to walk to school or bike to school together with you. Take public transportation to show them alternative ways of travel.

Recycle
Kids bring home loads of papers from school. Recycle their papers from school when they are done with them.  Use both sheets of paper.

Personal Products
Teach them the benefits of using soaps, shampoos and lotions without chemicals. It doesn’t end up in the watershed and harm the fish and amphibians as well as on them.  Talk to their schools about switching to castile soap instead of harmful anti-bacterial soap. When out and about, carry your own small bottle of castile soap when at restaurants especially. When daughter starts to ask about makeup, teach her the dirty dozen chemicals to avoid or go to www.cosmeticdatabase.org to see if the mascara she wants to buy is worthy of her lovely lashes.

Reducing Toxins
Another easy thing to teach them is to take their shoes off at the door. It leaves whatever attached to the bottom of their shoes toxic or not outside the home. Have them make a family sign saying remove your shoes please at the door.

Clean is green
When it is time to do chores, give them cleaning products without toxins. It’s fun to make cleaning products together, especially laundry soap. It’s easy and very inexpensive. You can make many cleaning products from simple ingredients like baking soda, essential oils, hydrogen peroxide and vinegar.

Picking Up
When they are on walks on the beach or on trails, carry a bag and help them pick up trash. They will develop a sense of respect for the earth.

Art
Do art with found objects around the house or yard.  Some materials to work with are: cork, river rocks, shoeboxes for habitats, cardboard boxes and wood. Look for non toxic materials like soy crayons, healthy glues and paints. There is almost always an alternative, just read the labels like on everything else.

Gardening
Plant an organic garden at home, give them their own small plot or area to care for. There are also creative ways to integrate wildlife into your backyard like building houses for bees, birds and bats. Use certified OMRI compost that has been tested for pesticides and heavy metals.

Compost
Something fun to do is have the kids help you make a worm shake out of the vegetable and fruit peels, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc and have them take it to the yard compost bin and watch what happens.

Clothes
When shopping for clothes or school supplies, steer them in the right direction. Healthy is cool and many companies are starting to modernize their styles. Organic cotton, hemp and soy clothing is in as well as PVC free and clothes without stain resistant chemicals too!

Going green is a mindset. Teach them the importance of their environment and what they put into it, including their bodies. They are young and impressionable, so start fresh and they will follow in your footsteps, hopefully smaller than the generation before.

Email michelle@ecoremedi.com to take your eco healthy family quiz. I will send you a report and steps to ensure a healthy environment that is affordable and doable for the whole family. Just take one step at time.  Cost is 39.95.