Eco Healthy Child Care: Pesticides

Don't Bug Me

From Eco Healthy Child Care

 

A pesticide is anything used inside or outside to prevent, control, repel, or kill insects, plants and other pests. The main concern is children’s exposure to pesticides that contain harmful chemicals. Many chemical pesticides can spread through the air when they are sprayed, and then seep into the soil and water.

 

It's important that child care centers and homes are free of chemical pesticides.  Even low levels of some pesticide exposure are a threat to young developing bodies. Many pesticides take a very long time to break down. They persist indoors for weeks on furniture, toys and other surfaces and can persist for years on household dust. Research indicates that levels of pesticides in indoor air are often ten times higher than those measured in outdoor air.

 

Usually there are non-chemical solutions that work just as well as pesticides:

• Clean up food and drink spills immediately (Pests need food to survive)

• Fix water leaks (pests need water to survive)

• Seal cracks and holes (insect entrances)

• Use environmentally friendly strategies to deter pests

• Keep trash in a closed container and remove frequently

• Maintain healthy soil to deter weeds and eliminate habitats favorable to pests (remove standing water)

For more info visit: http://www.oeconline.org/

Recycling Guidance

Recycle, Reuse, Reduce

Recycling helps our environment tremendously by saving room in our landfills and reducing energy needed to create new products. 

Here's what you can recycle:

1. Paper:  This includes newspaper and everything that comes in it, magazines, colored paper and all junk mail that is delivered to your home.
2. Plastic:  All hard plastics labeled with numbers 1 through 7 including nursery pots, yogurt containers and even toys are recyclable!
3. Metal:  Steel, aluminum, aluminum foil etc. are all recyclable. 
4. Glass:  All food & beverage containers
5. Cardboard:  Flattened boxes

Here's what you can't:

1. Batteries:· Batteries contain heavy metals like mercury, nickel, lead and cadmium, which can contaminate the environment if improperly disposed of.
2. Styrofoam:
3. Waxed Cardboard:

To go above and beyond simply recycling try rinsing out all food and drink containers and flatten all cardboard boxes.  Doing this reduces the amount of time it takes for items to go through the cleaning and breakdown process at the recycling plant.  Reducing this time reduces the amount of financial resources needed to pay for this time.

DID YOU KNOW?
PAPER

• More space can be saved in our landfills by recycling paper products than any other materials.
• Each piece of paper can be recycled up to 5 times before the fibers become weak.
• Every day 44 million newspapers are thrown away in the trash.  That's the equivalent of throwing 500,000 trees in the landfill every week.
• Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil and 7,000 gallons of water.
• If each person were to reuse a paper shopping bag for just one trip to the store, we would save 60,000 trees.

ALUMINIUM

• It takes about 95% less energy to make aluminum from recycled aluminum than to make it from raw materials.
• Recycling a single aluminum can saves enough energy to power your television for three hours or to run a 100-watt light bulb for almost four hours.
• aluminum dumped into our landfills today will remain there for over 200 years.

 
PLASTICS

• Plastic bags made from recycled polythene rather than virgin materials save two thirds of the energy required for production and reduce the water used by almost 90%.
• Recycling is still important however, because there are many items that can be made from recycled plastics. These items include garbage cans, picnic tables, fiber-fill for vests and jackets, traffic cones and many others. 5 Purchasing items such as these that are made from recycled materials will help to further support this industry.
• Although food and yard trimmings are biodegradable these often sit for long periods of time unable to be broken down through the plastic bags they are stored in.

 
GLASS:
 

• Glass is 100% recyclable and can go from the recycling bin to a store shelf in as little as 30 days!
• Glass can be reused an infinite number of times.
• Recycling one ton of glass saves the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel oil and one sixth of a ton of carbon dioxide!
• Making a glass container from a recycled container creates about 20% less air pollution, 50% less water pollution and uses only about half the energy of making it from virgin materials.
• Recycling a single glass bottle can save enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for 4 hours!

 
STYROFOAM
 

• Each year Americans throw away 25 trillion Styrofoam cups. This is enough to circle the earth 436 times.
• Harmful chemicals are released into the atmosphere during the production of Styrofoam. These chemicals have been shown to degrade the Earth’s ozone layer. 10

 
WAXED CARDBOARD
 

• Waxed cardboard cannot be recycled. It can only be recycled as mixed paper and many recycling plants will not even accept it meaning that it will end up in the trash.

Do you know of any other products that are or aren't recyclable?

Ways To Go Green

You Can Do It

Going “green” doesn’t have to be difficult. Trying to go completely “green” all at once can be overwhelming so why not pledge to go “green” one small step at a time. It will take time to create new habits and getting your household on board will be easier if your changes are made over an extended period of time. Here are just some ways that you can make your business and household more environmentally friendly.

Avoid Bringing It Home

• Ask for paper grocery bags instead of plastic bags and recycle them.  Better yet, use reusable fabric bags instead. Reusing a paper bag just once can save up to 60,000 trees, imagine how many trees can be saved if we all used reusable bags?
• Purchase items that have less packaging. Even though it's good, recycling is very difficult because the separation process for the different types of products is labor intensive and not cost efficient.
• When you go out to eat take your own Tupperware with you to package your leftovers instead of using the restaurant's Styrofoam, tin or plastic disposable containers.
• Take your own reusable cup with you when you go to the coffee shop.  Most large chains will give you a discount if you take your own cup saving both the environment and money!

In The General Home

• Use "green" household cleaners to clean your home or make your own natural cleaning products.
• Recycle
• Switch your light bulbs to CFL's
• Fix leaky faucets
• Use energy efficient appliances with the Energy Star label.
• Save paper and get paperless statements.  Pay your bills online.
• Conduct a Do-It-Yourself Home Energy Assessment

In The Kitchen

• Instead of using disposable plates and utensils for your daycare and events try using reusable dishes and flatware instead.

Toys

• Use rechargeable batteries in your toys and other items. Each rechargeable battery can substitute for hundreds of single use batteries.
• Hard plastic is recyclable so instead of throwing those old or broken toys in the garbage donate them or recycle them.
• Before buying new toys or games check Craigslist or Freecycle.

Activities

• Have a box or bin for scrap-paper and let your kids use it for art & craft activities and to color on the back side of the used paper.