Green Options

Another Southern woman who was breastfeeding her infant at a restaurant was asked to cover up or leave last week. Previously, a Kentucky woman was asked to leave an Applebee’s restaurant for the same “offense.”

What is it with these so-called “family” restaurants? Apparently being a family establishment means you can eat together with your family so long as you’re not having to feed your baby. Makes perfect sense!

After a few complaints from other customers, the Denny’s manager finally called the police to ask them what the law stated regarding breastfeeding mothers. As it turns out, North Carolina law protects a breastfeeding mother’s right to breastfeed even if her nipple is showing. However, the police stated that they could force her to leave on the grounds of “trespassing.” That’s always a great way to get rid of customers, right?

Yet another victory and more good news for toy safety happened to day, with a judge ruling that toys and baby products with pthalates must be removed from the shelves.

“Today’s victory gives parents the certainty Congress tried to provide in the first place – that their children are safe from harmful chemicals in their toys,” said Aaron Colangelo, NRDC attorney. “This is a big win for children’s health and consumer safety.”

The NRDC filed a lawsuit against the CPSC in December after a loophole had been proposed to allow companies to continue selling pthalate-laden products so long as they were made prior to the ban date.

To quote Dora - “WE DID IT!”

The CPSC has granted a one year stay for the CPSIA mandatory testing requirements that were going to make February 10, 2009 Bankrupt Day for probably hundreds of thousands of businesses in the United States, as well as forcing many European distributors out of the country.

I promised myself that this would be the year of composting. It’s really quite simple and it offers huge benefits to your environment and your own yard and/or garden.

But, it’s already nearly February and I have yet to get started.

Frustrated as I might be, I’ve found that living an eco-friendly lifestyle is not a static decision. It comes with highs and lows, new discoveries, changing habits, and most of all, finding balance. Sometimes that means you’re leaving a tiny carbon foot print one day. And on others, it might be bigger than you’d like to admit.

For me, living a greener lifestyle has a lot to do with state of mind.

If you’ve got a spare minute, please hop over to Change.org and vote for the Handmade Toy Alliance’s proposal “Save Small Businesses from the CPSIA.” The top 10 ideas will be presented to the Obama Administration, and considering how many people this act effects, we need all the help we can get.

Simply place your vote digg style, and consider spreading the word with links on your [...]

I first heard about Obama’s Green Inauguration in a passing discussion by two news journalists today who mentioned that he was using a green carpet for his celebration.

“Yeah, but you know everyone will be flying in and taking limos,” the journalist noted. And honestly, he did have a point.

However, after researching the green inauguration ball further (which as it turns out is totally separate from the actual inauguration), it does seem as though there’s definitely a larger green effort involved in what might otherwise be passed off as green washing.

I cringe every time someone suggests stocking up on cheap plastic junk to keep kids occupied on the plane. Quite frankly, I’d much rather give my kids 4000 organic jelly beans then spend any money on little plastic toys that will end up tossed by the end of the plane ride.

So I’ve come up with a few ways to keep them firmly in their seats, all of which do not require you buying stock in bunch of plastic nonsense.

Ah the dreaded goody bag. It’s every parent’s arch nemesis. And with my son’s 2nd birthday soon upon us, I’m determined to avoid the seemingly unescapable “bag of junk” that people seem obligated to give kids who attend their party.

I’m not even sure why they call it a “goody bag” because there’s just nothing good about it.

So here are some simple ways to create eco-friendly goody bags that kids and their parents will thank you for, and ones that won’t kill your budget.

With all the cold, overcast weather we’ve had here in Atlanta, I have to say we’ve time our vacation perfectly. Okay, so we actually had no choice in the matter thanks to my husband job, but still, heading to the beach in the dead of winter sounds practically perfect to me. So, in exactly one week (oh yes, I’m counting), I’ll be packing up my family of five and shoving off to a warm beach destination, which in the past has meant one gigantic eco nightmare.

Granted, it is vacation and so it’s going to be hard to keep things as green minded as I usually try to be, but thanks to so many exciting new products, it’s not that hard to go green on vacation.

Whether you’re flying off to an island resort, or just taking a long drive South for the winter, here are some great products that will help lessen your carbon footprint and still enjoy the sun and sand.

A blog friend and colleague of mine recently shared her annoyance for the grocery baggers who shoot out the dirtiest of looks when you pull out your own cloth grocery bags. As she said in her original twitter comment:

Dear grocery store baggers: Please stop looking so sullen when I pull out my reusable bags. They save your store money.

And of course, I had to chuckle and completely agree because almost every time (save when I bring my Olive Smart bags for some reason) I pull out my own tote bags one of the following happens:

a) Huge sigh from the bagger

b) Knowing looks between the cashier and the bagger

c) The slowest bag packing ever known to woman or man, not to be matched by me having to tell them that they can fit a solid 10 more items in that bag before they try to put it back in my cart.

Seriously, what makes them so miserable?