The Sustainable(ish) Guide to Green Parenting: Guilt-Free Eco-Ideas for Raising Your Kids by Jen Gale

Author:Jen Gale [Gale, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Family & Relationships, Parenting, General, Self-Help, Green Lifestyle, Motherhood, nature, Environmental Conservation & Protection, Health & Fitness, Pregnancy & Childbirth
ISBN: 9781472984586
Google: EoMeEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-03-18T23:53:26.085787+00:00

Sustainable(ish) crafting ideas

Keeping toddlers and pre-schoolers entertained is no mean feat and can feel pretty relentless. Even the least crafty of us will turn to arts and crafts to fill a bit of time on a rainy afternoon and award ourselves some smug parenting points, but sometimes crafting can do more harm than good when it comes to the planet.

GLITTER

Every parent’s nightmare but OMG kids love it, don’t they?

If the fact that you’ll still be finding it sparkling around the house weeks after using it, or turn up at work with a piece stuck to your cheek, isn’t enough to put you off, then the revelation that glitter is actually made of teeny tiny pieces of plastic should. It’s not just plastic either, it’s microplastic, and it’s the micro that is especially problematic. You see when our little darlings toddle off to spread glitter all around the sink wash their hands, the glitter travels down the plughole and into our waterways. When it reaches the water treatment plant it’s so small that it can pass through the filters, and straight out to sea. It can then be mistaken for food by smaller organisms and enter the food chain.

I had originally intended to say at this point, ‘but don’t worry, it’s not all bad news’ and go on to extol the virtues of ‘eco-friendly glitter’, however a study released by Anglia Ruskin University in October 2020 cast doubt on whether ‘eco-glitter’ is in fact any more environmentally friendly than it’s regular counterparts. If you (or your little ones) really can’t face the prospect of glitter-free crafting then my advice would be to check out the Eco Glitter Fun website (www.ecoglitterfun.com) which sells Bioglitter® PURE. This is a plastic-free glitter that has undergone rigorous testing and meets the highest level of independent certification for freshwater biodegradability in the world. Their craft glitter is quite pricey, but maybe you can persuade your kids to take on a ‘less is more’ approach… If you’ve got a stash of glitter sat in your craft cupboard that’s now making you feel guilty, Eco-Stardust are another eco-friendly glitter company, and they have a ‘glitter amnesty’ (www.ecostardust.com/pages/non-bioglitter-amnesty). You can send them your pots of glitter (no glitter gels though) and they make it into funky earrings and jewellery (think glitter balls for your ears!) AND give you a 15% discount off their range of eco-glitter.

CRAFT FOAM

Lots of kids’ craft packs come with cut-out shapes of craft foam for children to then indiscriminately stick to things. It makes for easy crafting, but as far as I’m aware there’s nothing that can be done with them afterwards other than landfill (although obviously we’re all keeping every one of our cherub’s pieces of artwork for posterity, right?). My advice would be to avoid if at all possible.

STICKY TAPE

Our youngest would frequently be found sitting happily at the kitchen table having raided the recycling bin randomly cutting and taping bits of cardboard and yoghurt pot together, cheerfully rendering them unrecyclable (unless I wanted to spend a good half an hour painstakingly separating it all back out again).

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