Green Options

I’ve long been a fan of Ideal Bite and was excited when they introduced Mama Bite!

From family road trips to eco-friendly sunscreen to DIY crafts, Mama Bite gives you bite-size ideas for living light green this summer. Fun, healthy, eco-friendly tips are served up in a daily email each weekday.

The world is not such a magical place when chemicals, including the carcinogen chromium 6, are being dumped into groundwater.

A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles alleges that Disney has been dumping the waste from their on-site cooling systems since 1998. According to the suit, brought by Environmental Worldwatch, Inc and local residents, the company,

supplied, dumped, released and deposited and continues to supply, dump, release and deposit vast amounts of chromium 6, air cooling water and residues, and other various toxic waste materials.

The Disney corporation has so far declined to comment on the specifics of the case but are denying any wrongdoing.

Earlier this month, one of Peru’s major newspapers reported that Disney might open a park about an hour south of Lima on Peru’s coast. Would a Disney theme park be good or bad for Peru?

That’s the question that is now on many peoples’ minds. Comment threads on popular Peruvian and expatriate websites show a diversity of opinions. Some people think a Disney theme park would be great for providing jobs in a country that needs them, while others think it would amount to exploitation.

Earth Day is a fantastic holiday. I’ve heard folks say that it’s the most celebrated secular holiday ever.

This year to celebrate Earth Day Disneynature, Disney’s new independent film label, will release their first film, Earth. Earth is narrated by James Earl Jones and tells the remarkable story of three animal families and their amazing journey across the planet we all call home. Earth combines rare action, unimaginable scale and impossible locations by capturing the most intimate moments of our planet’s wildest and most elusive creatures. Directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, the acclaimed creative team behind the Emmy Award-winning “Planet Earth” series combine forces again to bring this epic adventure to the big screen, beginning Earth Day 2009. To celebrate the film’s theatrical release, Disneynature will be planting a tree in the endangered Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest in honor of every person who sees the film during its opening week!

$17 billion a year is spent by the advertising and marketing industry to shape our children’s desires and identities.

Now that the economic recession gripping the world is causing free market ideals to be questioned, it’s time to examine its effects on our children.  Henry A. Giroux writes:

While the “empire of consumption” has been around for a long time, American society in the last thirty years has undergone a sea change in the daily lives of children - one marked by a major transition from a culture of innocence and social protection, however imperfect, to a culture of commodification. This is culture that does more than undermine the ideals of a secure and happy childhood; it also exhibits the bad faith of a society in which, for children, “there can be only one kind of value, market value; one kind of success, profit; one kind of existence, commodities; and one kind of social relationship, markets.”(2) Children now inhabit a cultural landscape in which they can only recognize themselves in terms preferred by the market.

Florida’s new “Buy Local Orlando” initiative, set to launch May 1, conjures up pleasing images of farmer’s market produce and goods hand-crafted by local artisans.  With the words “buy local” in the program’s title, it makes sense to assume that the participating merchants are locally-based. The widespread locavore movement, after all, is just that: local.

But Orlando’s local program is anything but. The first tip-off? It’s launched in conjunction with the Disney Entrepreneur Center. Not exactly the name that comes to mind when you think of supporting local businesses. But then again, neither is McDonald’s — but according to “Buy Local Orlando” program guidelines, the fast food chain qualifies as a local merchant.

In its recently released corporate responsibility report, Disney outlines its plans to be more sustainable.

Last week, a rare occasion occurred in the African country of Botswana: a pink baby elephant was serendipitously spotted with its mother and subsequently filmed. If pink elephants are so rare, then why do we see depictions of them so often?

Before the question is answered, here’s a little more background on pink elephants. The pink elephant found in Botswana is more accurately described as a rare albino elephant, one of only three to have been officially recorded in Africa. More albino elephants are thought to have historically existed among Asia’s elephant species (also sometimes referred to as white elephants), although this occurrence is also a rarity. An albino in Sri Lanka was the first to be officially recorded among the Asian elephant species, and just recently in 2004. According to Wikipedia, “although often depicted as snow white, their skin is normally a soft reddish-brown, turning a light pink when wet.”

We get a lot of press releases from companies big and small touting their green initiatives.   I usually dismiss the ones from major corporations like Disney and Barbie as greenwashing, but I still pass them on to our writers.  After much prodding and persuading from my online friends, I usually take up the issue myself, as I just can’t help myself.  Disney….it’s your turn.

Disney has just issued the company’s first ever comprehensive corporate responsibility (CR) report.  For a company that was founded in the 1920s and is the largest media and entertainment corporation in the world, this report is a long time overdue!

The long term environmental goals outlined in the report are:

Zero waste

Zero net direct greenhouse gas emissions from fuels

Reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity consumption

Net positive impact on ecosystems

Minimize water use

Minimize product footprint

Inform, empower and activate positive action for the environment

For the past three years, the Center for Health, Justice and the Environment has been asking Disney to implement a green cleaning policy at their parks, resorts, hotels and restaurants for the health and safety of employees, visitors and the environment.

Some progress is being by Disney, however slow. According to the CHEJ :

“Disney World Parks & Resorts has made progress since CHEJ began its Disney Go Green campaign by introducing some green cleaning products and reviewing current practices. “Disney World absolutely understands green cleaning. Since we began our campaign, they have made progress, but until Disney World shows real leadership and commitment by implementing a written and comprehensive green cleaning policy, their job isn’t done.” said Renée Blanchard, Program Coordinator at CHEJ.”

They’d waited long enough. It was time to act.

Editor’s note: The following post was originally published on Green and Clean Mom. “Green & Clean Mom can inspire you to try a little harder, be a catalyst for change and to offer you some new tips and news on how to be the green, sexy and sassy mom…I know you are!”

Vacationing with children – it just about killed me. Our sleeping schedule was wacky, the stuff we had to pack and organize, and my daughter got sick and the money. Oh, my goodness the money to go to Disney and Sea World and shucks rent a car and eat for two weeks – I know why we don’t vacation often. My son got to experience flying and he loved climbing the mountain in Arizona, seeing his grandma (the highlight of our trip), eating some great fondue from the Melting Pot, shaking Buzz Light Years hand and riding his first roller coaster. I just hope he remembers it all. My daughter, well she played and played and enjoyed swimming and being with mom and dad. She won’t remember anything but we gave her some experiences to help her development and best of all (besides seeing grandma) she loved Sea World.