Green Options

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One of my fondest childhood memories was playing with a brand new refrigerator box with our neighbors in the front yard.  This large box was a space ship, a school bus, a house, etc.  Parents know that kids love boxes, and sometimes these corrugated containers are more interesting than the toys they contain on birthdays and holidays.  Kidsonroof has combined children’s love of cardboard boxes with dramatic play to create the MobileHome.

The MobileHome is made from recycled cardboard, is biodegradable, five percent of profits are donated to UNICEF, and is made in China.  It has eight secret rooms and is easy to take with you to the park, on vacation, or around the house.  My children immediately integrated their other toys, including their children’s yoga mat,  into dramatic play with our MobileHome.

My children’s birthdays are only two days apart, so we have only one party. That party is rapidly approaching, and though I ask guests to not feel compelled to give gifts and to consider the planet when doing so, my children like to give out party favors to their friends. There is nothing I hate more than coming home from a birthday party with a bunch of dollar store junk we have to get rid of immediately. Now, GreenPartyGoods offers solutions for eco-friendly birthday parties.

GreenPartyGoods explains their company’s motivation for offering parents eco-friendly solutions for birthday parties:

While walking my dog through our local park and watching families disassemble their parties, I was horrified at all the waste that ended up in the garbage cans. Bags of plastic utensils, plastic table cloths, crepe paper and cheap goodies bags filled with dollar toys headed for land fill. This is what motivated me to create GreenPartyGoods.

Here are some of my favorite green party goods offered by GreenPartyGoods:

• Toy Wooden Racing Boat: These hand-crafted, hand-painted wooden racing boats are my favorite party favor and the ones we will be giving to our party guests. Since we hold our party at the river, the boats will be perfect for added water frolicking fun. The boats are made by award-winning Anatex. The wood comes from Germany, paint from Russia, and assembled in China. They are tested lead free by a third party and cost $2.50 a piece.

Almost a month ago, we received a press release for Barbie™ BCause, an attempt by Mattel to fool consumers into believing made in China, plastic, out-of-proportion dolls were green. I sent it out to our Eco Child’s Play writers stating, “Anyone want to take this on. I can’t do it. I’d be struck by lightening or something. ” Beth Bader responded that there had been too many lies, too much deception to believe such sustainability claims. So I thought green Barbie was dead to our blog, until Skye Kilaen of Crafting a Green World sent me an interesting article from Mother Jones. MJ writes:

When I first saw the press release about a “green” Mattel collection of accessories called Barbie BCause, I thought it was an April Fool’s joke. Apparently not. Mattel’s new “playful and on-trend” collection of hats and bags for young girls will be released “just in time to celebrate Earth Day in style.” Which is pretty ironic, really, given that Barbie dolls themselves are made out of plastic and are packaged in even more plastic. And not the kind of plastic you can throw in the recycling bin, either.

Good news on the toy front.National toy expert Marianne Szymanski who runs Toy Tips proclaims:

“There is no hot toy this year!”

“Because of all the recalls, safety is of utmost concern to parents. Instead of running store to store looking for one particular toy, shoppers are picking up box after box frantically reading labels to make sure they are making the right purchases…” “Taking the time to research toys rather than just buy what’s on ‘hot’ lists is the smart choice for any child.”

That seems to be what the child development experts have been saying all along. It took the recall scare to get the word out. Ms. Szymanski goes on then to list smart toy buying tips for parents.

1. Read the package and age guidelines. Make sure the age matches a child’s skill level. Not all children develop at the same rate and this is a safety concern.

2. If made in China and the shopper is hesitant, keep in mind any toy made anywhere (not just China) at anytime can be recalled for any reason.

there are going to be a lot of people in the same quandary if and when the major study linking artificial turf to cancer or MRSA infection is released. Lots of people wondering if they’re going to be sued, if their kids are going to be affected, how they’re going to remove the gazillions of pellets from parks and aquifers, and who’s going to pay for it all?

If you have children, you know that they have boundless amounts of energy. It only makes sense to use this energy to power toys, and Zen Design Group has come up with a line of toys that does just that. These "environmentally friendly," kid-powered SEE Toys will be available online September 15.

SEE Toys has created five different kid-powered toys: Dyancar, Dynatiger, Dynafly, Dynashark, and Dynadolphin. SEE stands

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