The Suter Energy Savers, a team of fourth-graders at Suter Elementary School, won at the elementary level for their work on 28 conservation projects in all. Their efforts included collecting $200 worth of recyclables, distributing flyers at area coffee shops urging customers to switch to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and making s’mores in a solar oven.

It was the first time the fourth-grade program won a national title, though it’s taken statewide honors three times already. The elementary program is led by teachers Deborah Pate and Judy Toy.

Also on their way to the Washington awards ceremony are eighth-graders representing The EnerJags from Workman Middle School. The junior level-winning team did everything from collecting recyclables and selling ad space on reusable shopping bags — enough to pay for the D.C. trip — to creating green t-shirts and observing regular “Blackout Wednesdays.”

Eighth-grade teacher Andrea Hussey said the weekly sunlight-only class day probably saved the school district about $200 in energy costs.

To find out more about Pensacola’s top green kids, check out this article in the Pensacola News Journal.

© Hallgerd | Dreamstime.com

I suppose the average person would think me a bit odd. Or even extreme, as a parent. You see, I don’t allow T.V. during the week. On weekends, we might, just might watch a DVD if the weather is lousy, or we’ve had an exhausting weekend not spent watching T.V. the rest of the time.

I also try to choose DVDs that are old enough that the frenzy of licensed products has abated enough to be able to get through a visit to the store without a hundred repetitions of “No, we don’t need that.” Or, “Sure, it’s a character you know. But the cereal is crap. We can get a coloring book instead.” It’s enough to make you hate television. It really is.
If you haven’t paid much attention to the marketing onslaught aimed at your kids, well, The Kaiser Family Foundation report, “Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States,” has some pretty frightening statistics that might change your mind. The Small Screen with the Big Impact:

• Based on a national average viewing time of four hours per day for a child, over a year’s time he is exposed to nearly 30,000 commercials.
• That statistic is based on the maximum regulated amount of commercials that can be shown during an hour of programming. Not all networks adhere to this maximum. In 2004, children’s network Nickelodean violated this regulation 591 times. They were fined $1 million, far less than the amount netted from the additional commercials.
• Much of the television programming and commercials are aimed at younger children who are unable to differentiate the marketing messages from the program content. Given that most of these ads are fun, fast-paced and use licensed or branded characters, the similarity between the two makes this differentiation even harder to distinguish.
• Nearly one-third of children under the age of six have a television in their bedroom.
• Two-thirds of children aged eight and older have a television in their bedrooms.
• Between the ages of two and four, on average, children view approximately two hours of television per day. This increases throughout childhood and peaks at adolescence. Tweens and teens begin to replace television use with internet use, or will multi-task, watching television while online.
• Sixty percent of all the meals families eat together (and those are not many) are eaten with the television on.
• Of all the commercials that children are exposed to, nearly half are for food items such as sweetened cereals, candy, soda, and fast food. Which means 15,000 messages per year, on average.

Environmentally Friendly Biofuel?

A Swedish bus company is marketing it’s use of environmentally friendly biofuels by depicting humans drinking from petrol pumps.

Needless to say the Swedish Poison Information Center is up in arms over the Flygbussarna Airport Coach company’s advertisements.

The company operates shuttle busses to seven airports throughout Sweden, and has increased it use of rapeseed bio-diesel in its fleet. The company plans to use only biofuels within three years, and is using the campaign of posters and ads on its website insinuating the fuel is safe enough to drink.

Swedish officials say the fear is that children who see the ad may just want to try it out, stick a fuel nozzle into their mouths and have a sip. The results, according to the Poison Information Center, could be catastrophic.

The bus company, meanwhile, is quoted as saying, “children see a lot of violence on TV they never go and shot people afterwards.”

Good advertising strategy, or a dangerous one? What do you think?

Source of Image and content. The Local

With the first tome based around the element of earth, the second tome is all about water (as the title suggests). Miho’s scientist parents were lost at sea and she now has to move to Japan to live with her uncle. Though she speaks no Japanese and has never met her uncle, she has no other choice but to move in with her only living relative.

While visiting the beach house of her grandparents (who have already passed on), Miho meets the already infamous otter, Gaia. Miho is quickly swept up in the excitement of being able to talk to all the creatures of the sea and makes friends with a large group of dolphins. Of course, her adult uncle thinks she is nuts and simply can’t follow orders when he tells her to be home at a certain time and she continues to come home dripping wet.

Will Miho and her uncle ever connect? Have you ever traveled across the world in the mouth of a whale? What happens when poachers try to capture some of her dolphin friends? I could answer all of those questions for you, but it would take all the fun out of reading the book yourself.

As in the first book, a collection of fun puzzles and intelligent discussion questions follows the story. Welles was also keen enough to add a small Japanese dictionary into the book for the few conversations that occur in the foreign language. Though I neglected to mention them in my last review, the cover and inside art for both books are breathtaking - they really make the story come alive.

Book three, Gaia Girls - Air Apparent, is set to be released later this year. Stay tuned to Eco Child’s Play for updates and reviews of the entire Gaia Girls series!

She became incessant and consistent in her convictions as the years passed by. The groves of trees all around us were still being destroyed. She wanted to write to the President of the United States. We started to become concerned. Where was this coming from? How did this happen? A green girl in our very red home. It became a joke — our little “treehugger,” we would say.

One day, standing in our kitchen, she asked me a very pointed question. “Do we recycle?” she knew the answer, by this time she was 5 or 6. I honestly said, “no” (I was a little ashamed). “Why not?” she pressed. I didn’t have an answer. What was I to say? The county provides containers for that very purpose and they retrieve the containers from the end of our driveway. Instead of answering her question I said “Let’s start now.” She was pleased. We immediately found the recycle containers in the garage and put them in a handy place. Then we went on line and looked up the rules, days and times for our area.

My green light grew brighter. She became more outspoken in homes that we visited as well. Innocently she asked them if they recycle as she finished with a plastic container or soda can. Her message was clear.

More years have passed and she is 11 now. Recently she said “I’m not a treehugger.” I asked her why she would say that and her reply was revealing. “I do care about the environment but I’m not a treehugger.” My sensitive girl had taken offense to our comments. I realized her green light, that had once shown so brightly, was an innate part of her. We were able to dim that light by our offhand remarks and basic disregard for her concerns. I regretted not allowing her to write her letter to the President years ago.

She is my inspiration. Encouraging me to passionately pursue a green lifestyle, green products and green issues in our world. She is a social conservative (at this point… I will remember my past mistakes and embrace her unconditionally no matter what her stance on the issues) and a very green girl. She is a green light in a red home. Actually, she is a green light in a red community. Her statement today, “God gave us the earth; we should take care of it.” I agree.

Photo Credit: Justin via Flickr

I steer my young fans to a fantastic organization called, Roots and Shoots. Formed by renown primatologist and humanitarian, Jane Goodall, Roots and Shoots channels the energy of youth into making positive change for their communities, for the animals and for the planet!

This amazing network of young people spans the globe. Your young greeniacs can see what other groups are doing and how successes are achieved. Kids can join existing groups with campaigns already underway or start a group of their own. A basic membership is free. For the kid who is ready for the mantle of “leader” a yearly fee opens up a astounding library of tools.

Whether it was March of the Penquins, An Inconvenient Truth , or maybe just the Bambi in the backyard, if your kids are ready to roll up their sleeves and take action, following in Jane Goodall’s footsteps is a great first step!

Also on Green Options:

Gavin Hudson, “Join Jane Goodall for Peace Celebrations Sunday, Free Admission”

Contrary to what you may have heard, birdfeeding will not spread disease or make the birds forget where their natural food sources are. All seed is not created equal. The cheap seed you find in mega-marts generally comes from the bottom of the silo of seed for human consumption. It is long bereft of the healthy oils that the birds are seeking. If you see the birds, “sorting” through your seed, you need to look for a better quality source.

I purchased a “pole system” from my local Wild Birds Unlimited a few years ago and am watching a pair of cardinals, a nuthatch, purple finches, mourning doves, and blue jays converging on the feeder as I type. Yes, occassionally a sharp-shinned hawk swoops in to grab a meal; but learning about predator/prey and the cycle of life is part of appreciating nature!

A nature/field journal is not only a gift that will foster the connection between a child and their environment, but it is a gift that can become treasured memorabilia. Post-holiday, help get a kid going by suggesting a location to monitor or a place to visit and suggestions on what kind of data to record. Visit your local library or bookstore and look at journals of note. NEVER edit a child’s entry! This is a record of what they observed and thought at that moment and it is never “wrong.” Don’t be surprised if they go back and edit themselves when they find more information!

You can also give kids the opportunity to contribute to the family and make the connection between living, growing things and the food they eat. A “sprout kit” is easy to assemble and package up as a gift. For a kid, sprouting seeds is nothing short of pure alchemy! Imagine, just seed and water and, BINGO! Food! You can experiment with a wide variety different seed types and flavors. Could this be the key to getting them to eat more greens??

If having a gift-free holiday is not something your family would go for, why not get them something sustainable? Just by looking through the eco-links collection on my website, one can easily see that there are cornucopia of green stores to choose from. For the next two months, I'll be featuring some of the freshest shopping destinations the world wide web has to offer, helping you get to the bottom of that twice-checked list faster than ever.

Trying to decide who to feature in my first Green Shopping Spotlight was a darn tough decision, but the answer came to me in a snap, or an e-mail as it were. Two days ago, I got a delightful message from Jennifer, half of the two-woman team that started Max and Zane, the other half being April. I'd never heard of the online outlet before so I quickly clicked on over to see what the scoop was, and boy (or girl, haha) was I in for a treat!

At Little Marmara, we believe in simple things. That we should treat the environment as we would treat ourselves. That nothing should go next to our children’s beautiful skin that we would not place next to our own. That clothing for little people can and should be as artful and well made as clothing for big people. And that at no point from the cotton fields to our customers should the earth or any of its inhabitants suffer in the slightest for our cause.

Founded in 2005, Little Marmara just recently launched its website and online store in July of this year. Unable to find anything she liked (and her two kids felt comfortable wearing), Ackerman started Little Marmara to solver her own clothing conundrums as well as those of other parents and their kids. Made from 100% organic Turkish cotton under fair labor practices, all of Little Marmara's creations are printed with low impact dyes, featuring gender-neutral Turkish designs from the Ottoman Empire era. The designs, and the brand itself, is a nod to Ackerman's children's Turkish heritage, with the line taking its name from the Marmara Sea and the ancient Middle Eastern trade routes that used to follow its shores.

The media loves a good hero story and Jeremy has been getting buffeted by accolades, interview requests, and gifts. He’s been offered free tuition at a car repair tech school (he had had to drop out of a program because he couldn’t afford the $15k/year costs).

The best part of this whole thing (you know, besides all the kids he saved) is that when the White House called him about a photo op with our stupid president, he had one simple word for them.

“Nope”.

Much respect to Jeremy Hernandez.

I have two little girls who like Dora the Explorer. I think Swiper the Fox is cute and it’s a good little educational show and we have a bunch of Dora toys. I’m beyond mad at all the douchebags in the chain of corporate events that lead to my children playing with toys coated with lead. What kind of society do we live in that builds poison toys?

Wake up and smell the Cradle to Cradle.

The complete list of toys being recalled is after the jump, you can go here to see pictures of the affected toys (the site was down when I tried to check, probably because there are millions of worried parents flooding there for help).

33662 Elmo Light Up Musical Pal

33663 Ernie Light Up Musical Pal

33664 Big Bird Light Up Musical Pal

34658 Elmo Stacking Rings

39038 Elmo Tub Sub

39054 Sesame Street Shape Sorter

87946 Elmo Keyboard

90267 Ernie Splashin’ Fun Trike

90609 Elmo Collectible

90611 Cookie Collectible

90612 Zoe Collectible

90613 Ernie Collectible

90614 Big Bird Collectible

90745 Construction Playset

93068 Elmo Boom Box

93107 Action Fire Engine

93307 Press N Go Elmo

93308 Rev & Go Cookie Monster

93492 Cookie Saxophone

93493 Elmo’s Guitar

93615 Splash Tub Puzzle

93780 Music And Lights Phone

B7554 Count To Beat Elmo

B7888 Shake, Giggle & Roll

B7987 Elmo in the Giggle Box

B7989 Silly Parts Talking Elmo

B9620 Dora’s Talking House

C6908 Dora, Backpack, Perrito Figure Pack

C6909 Diego Figure Pack

C6910 Swiper Figure Pack

C6911 Boots, Tico Figure Pack

G3825 Dora Talking Vamonos Van

G5112 Sing With Elmo’s Greatest Hits

G9717 Giggle Doodler

H2943 Grow with Me Elmo Sprinkler

H3343 Cousin Daisy

H3344 Birthday Dora

H5569 Elmo & Pals (Elmo, Cookie, Ernie)

H5570 Elmo & Pals (Elmo, Zoe, Big Bird)

H4187 Dora Figures in Tube

H4628 Water Fun Tote

H8236 Dora 3 Pack Figures in Tube

H8237 Blue 3 Pack Figures in Tube

H8238 Sponge Bob 3 Pack Figures in Tube

H9124 Chef Dora

H9125 Bedtime Dora

H9186 Giggle Grabber Ernie

H9188 Giggle Grabber Oscar the Grouch

J0338 Diego Talking Field Journal

J0343 Go Diego Go Antarctic Rescue

J0344 Go Diego Go Deep Sea Rescue

J0345 Go Diego Go Mountain Rescue

J0346 Go Diego Go Talking Rescue 4 X 4

J5935 Giggle Grabber Soccer Elmo

J5936 Giggle Grabber Chef Cookie Monster

J6537 Sesame Street Giggle Toolbelt

J6762 Queen Mami

J6763 Royal Boots and Tico

J6765 Prince Diego

J7983 Sesame Street Tub Pots & Pans

J9518 Sesame Street Giggle Drill

J9692 Dora’s Talking Pony Place

K0617 Twins Nursery

K3414 Diego - Talking Gadget Belt

K3571 Go Diego Go Mobile Rescue Unit

K3580 Fairytale Adventure Dora

K4139 Go Diego Go Dinosaur Rescue

K4140 Toucan Motorcycle Rescue

L0305 Dora Figure

L3194 Surprise Inside Diego Eggs

L3215 Sesame Street Elmo Jack-In-The-Box

L3488 Sesame Street Birthday Figure Pack

L3507 Sesame Street - Super Boom Box

L5202 Birthday Dora

L5813 Diego Tub Trike

L8905 Pablo & Pals

M0351 Dora Figures Dora & Kitty

M0352 Dora Figures Diego & Bear

M0524 Go Diego Go Talking Gadget

M0527 Sesame Street Giggle Doodler

M0732 Dora’s Talking House

M2051 Let’s Go Rescue Center

M2052 Fairytale Castle

Wal-Mart is Mexico’s largest private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. An additional 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores, mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico—and none of them receives a red cent in wages or fringe benefits. The company doesn’t try to conceal this practice: its 62 Superama supermarkets display blue signs with white letters that tell shoppers: OUR VOLUNTEER PACKERS COLLECT NO SALARY, ONLY THE GRATUITY THAT YOU GIVE THEM. SUPERAMA THANKS YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING. The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico because the kids are said to be “volunteering” their services to Wal-Mart and are therefore not subject to the requirements and regulations that would otherwise apply under the country’s labor laws. But some officials south of the U.S. border nonetheless view the practice as regrettable, if not downright exploitative. “These kids should receive a salary,” says Labor Undersecretary Patricia Espinosa Torres. “If you ask me, I don’t think these kids should be working, but there are cultural and social circumstances [in Mexico] rooted in poverty and scarcity.”

Half of the population of Mexico lives on less than $4/day, so any job- even one for nothing an hour with the possibility of tips, is an attractive one. Wal-Mart is exploiting kids who already live on the bottom of life’s heap. They live in crappy houses in crappy neighborhoods and have to live their crappy lives every day on what I spend on buying a smoothee.

To be fair to Wal-Mart, they didn’t invent the practice of exploiting poor kids (that’s been going on for ages), but they sure are taking advantage of it. In Mexico City their two closest competitors “employ” 1,142 teens, Wal-Mart has 4,300 on their non-payroll.

It’s entirely legal because Wal-Mart and other corporations claim the teens are “volunteering” their services to Wal-Mart. The kids are doing it out of the kindness of their heart.

Right.

I’m all for Wal-Mart’s green efforts, which appear so far to be sincere and real. But let’s not forget that the prime motivating drive behind their green dream is a dollars and cents analysis that sees the massive cost savings down the road after they tighten up their efficiencies. Wal-Mart remains a cold and profit driven corporate behemoth that has no moral quandaries about exploiting people and communities in search of a fatter profit margin.

In the process of packing up the house to get ready for our move (we’re moving down the road to Yarmouth, more to follow on that), Heather found the gift certificate and decided to call it in. She grew up a vegetarian, has never even had lobster, and was admittedly lob-curious.

The next day our friendly overnight delivery man rings the doorbell and leaves the box on the porch.

Somewhere in that box is two lobsters all trussed up with rubber bands waiting to be cooked up.

The whole package comes in a handy dandy cooking pot in a styrofoam cube, complete with corn on the cob, a bag of shimp and cocktail sauce, a stick of butter, and crab bisque. It retails for north of $125 and is just one of a wide selection of live sealife meals that you can have shipped to your door.

By the time we had opened up the box I had decided I’d let my lobster go free. My wife’s resolve in eating hers dissolved when she saw the poor little guys at the bottom of the pot. She got all teary and agreed it’d be a pretty bad bit of bad luck for the poor lobster that got selected as “hers”.

So we packed up the kids and the lobsters and headed off to Mackworth Island, just north of Portland to let them go.

Mackworth Island is a great pick for any Portlanders looking to do their own Lobster Liberation. It’s ironic that anywhere you see lobster traps is a good place to let the little guys go. It means that the ground beneath the waves is the right kind of rocky and that there are other lobsters there to frolic with.

My hope is that my lobsters will spend the rest of their underwater days telling the other lobsters about the dangers of traps. Just Say No to Traps.

Anyways, back to the story.

So we drove out to Mackworth Island and hiked around to the backside to a nice beach.

I peeled off the rubber bands. One of the lobsters responded right away to this, flexing his claws powerfully. The other was more lethargic, having taken the trauma of being trapped and shipped a little harder.

I paused to grab a quick photo of me and the lobsters, and gently placed them into the water.

Flexy, the stronger of the two lobsters, took off right away. He hung out in the general area for about 10 minutes and then took off out of sight. The other lobster took longer to shake off the effects of his run-in with humanity. It was a good 15-20 minutes before he started really moving around. By the time we left the beach Heather reported that he was moving around like Flexy, if a bit creakier.

If you would like to learn more about liberating your own lobster you can visit Lobster Liberation. They don’t recommend you buy lobsters to set them free as you end up just supporting the lobster industry. If you are given a lobster (or win them as a door prize), here are some tips

I was given a lobster. How can I set him or her free?
Lobsters are very delicate, so always handle them with care to ensure that you don’t accidentally break one of their legs or claws.
• Do not place lobsters in fresh water—it will kill them.
• Hold them gently. You must support lobsters’ bodies as well as their claws so that their joints won’t be stressed.
• Carefully cut the rubber bands off their claws—never pull or yank the bands off, as that could damage their claws (or even rip them off!).
• Don’t release lobsters into just any part of the ocean. Make sure that there are other lobsters in the area. You’ll also want to release them away from lobster pots.
• Don’t just toss them in! Gently release them as far in as you can wade.

On the question of whether Lobsters feel pain, here’s what Lobster Liberation has to say about it- it’s not a pretty picture…

“As an invertebrate zoologist who has studied crustaceans for a number of years, I can tell you the lobster has a rather sophisticated nervous system that, among other things, allows it to sense actions that will cause it harm. … [Lobsters] can, I am sure, sense pain.”
—Jaren G. Horsley, Ph.D.

Contrary to claims made by seafood sellers, there is little doubt anymore that lobsters, like all animals, can feel pain. Most scientists agree that a lobster’s nervous system is quite sophisticated. For example, neurobiologist Tom Abrams says lobsters have “a full array of senses.” Jelle Atema, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and one of the country’s leading experts on lobsters, says, “I personally believe they do feel pain.”

Lobsters may even feel more pain than we would in similar situations. One popular food magazine recently suggested cutting live lobsters in half before tossing them on the grill (a recipe that’s “not for the squeamish,” the magazine warned), and more than one chef has been known to slice and dice lobsters before cooking them. But, says invertebrate zoologist Jaren G. Horsley, “The lobster does not have an autonomic nervous system that puts it into a state of shock when it is harmed. It probably feels itself being cut. … I think the lobster is in a great deal of pain from being cut open … [and] feels all the pain until its nervous system is destroyed” during cooking.

I’m an imperfect Environmentalist- I was a vegetarian for six years or so but now eat meat again. I grew up in a family known for striving to serve up as many different animals at Thanksgiving as possible and I had a kickass chicken burrito the other day. I know how bad eating meat is, I’m imperfect- who isn’t?

But there is just something wrong about throwing a living animal into a pot of boiling water to eat it. And don’t give me that bullshit about putting them to sleep before you put them in the pot. If you fell into a pot of boiling water when you were asleep do you think you would snooze through?

There are too many reasons now why Bush’s stupid war needs to be ended yesterday. Add this one to the pile…

As would be expected, Iraqi children living in Jordanian camps report witnessing gruesome events related to the war. These sorts of trauma leave indelible marks on children’s social and emotional development. According to a World Vision report Trapped! The Disappearing Hopes of Iraqi Refugee Children, “43 per cent of children surveyed in Amman, Jordan witnessed violence in Iraq, and 39 per cent said they lost someone close through violence.”

I can’t imagine how it would be to grow up in a war zone or have to flee your home for a refugee camp. Even as refugees, the children do not feel safe. Electronic Iraq reports, “‘These children have been kidnapped and held for ransom, witnessed brutal home invasions, suicide bombings and murders. Now refugee life offers them little option but to go to work as child laborers, exposing them to the threat of deportation,’ said Ashley Clements, author of the report. Understandably, 25 per cent of the Iraqi refugee children World Vision surveyed did not feel safe in their Jordanian homes. This is a combination of past experiences, lack of refugee status, which leaves the entire family unsure, and the absence of healthy routines like going to school, the report says.”

Head over to the excellent Eco Child’s Play for the full read.

George Bush and his whole band of cronies should be rounded up and tossed into Guantanamo to sit for a long long time. Our great nation is being run by criminals.

Greenloop is one woman's creative endeavor in market based environmental activism. The mission is simple: Green Life. Green Style. At Greenloop, the alignment of style and sustainability, of aesthetics and ethics, provide all of us with the opportunity to look good, feel good, and do good. All of the goods at Greenloop are made by conscientious companies who are committed to environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Greenloop is committed to supporting the development of environmentally responsible, renewable energy and to stopping global warming. To this end, we purchase Green Tags for each order placed making each shopping experience even greener.

Featuring one of the widest variety of green fashion and beauty collections, Greenloop has been a key factor in the progress and availability of the sustainable lifestyle. A proud member of Co-op America and 1% For The Planet, Greenloop carries a wide variety of brands, all of which feature one or more of the following eco-friendly elements:

CONAKRY, Guinea - The sun has set in one of the world’s poorest nations and as the floodlights come on at G’bessi International Airport, the parking lot begins filling with children.

The long stretch of pavement has the feel of a hushed library, each student sitting quietly, some moving their lips as their eyes traverse their French-language notes.

It’s exam season in Guinea, ranked 160th out of 177 countries on the United Nations’ development index, and schoolchildren flock to the airport every night because it’s among the only places where they’ll always find the lights on.

Groups of elementary and high school students begin heading to the airport at dusk, hoping to reserve a coveted spot under the oval light cast by one of a dozen lampposts in the parking lot. Some come from over an hour’s walk away.

The lot is teeming with girls and boys by the time Air France Flight 767 rounds the Gulf of Guinea at an hour-and-a-half before midnight. They hardly look up from their notes as the Boeing jet begins its spiraling descent over the dark city, or as the newly arrived passengers come out, shoving luggage carts over the cracked pavement.

London-based brand Hug, well known for their womens wear, recently re-released their unique children's line called Little Green Radicals. Available for babies and toddlers, all items are made from organic, certified Fair Trade, and sweatshop-free cotton in Egypt and India. Also noted on the brand's website: all prints "have been produced using the most ecological water based inks available."

While basic items like bibs, t-shirts, playsuits, denim are available, they are beyond boring. Graphics featuring phrases like "panda-monium," "I recycle my tantrums," "I only eat organic turnips," and "give peas a chance" come in vibrant shades of red, pink, blue, green, and yellow. Prices range from £5-£28 (roughly $10-$55) and items are available on the company's website. I did some searching and have not yet found an online store in the States that sells the line, so unfortunately, items would still have to be shipped from the UK.

Founded in 1992, Maggie's Organics has been one of the pioneers in the organic clothing industry, and has won awards from Co-op America, the Organic Trade Association, the Natural Products Expo, and more. Originally started as a marketing company for organic tortilla chips, it was suggested that adding cotton to crop rotation would help produce better corn for chips. Of course, once the cotton crop was picked, someone had to sell it.

Now offering clothing for newborns to 6 year-olds, all of the colors in Kate Quinn's line are inspired by specific elements of nature, which is reflected in their names, such as sunshine, peacock, and green apple. "I wanted to create a line that encompassed all the wishes and dreams of new parents: the softest, most natural materials to surround your baby, the highest quality design and construction, and most importantly, the hope of a cleaner, kinder earth," says Kate Quinn on the company's website.