Sustainability Guide: New Parents
We know it takes a village to raise a child and that is no exception for parents of a newborn. We are here to make this exciting (and exhausting!) time a bit easier for new mothers and fathers, while giving mother earth a little break too. Read below for more:
Sustainability Guide for New Parents
1. Utilize a cloth diaper service
According to the EPA, roughly 24.7 billion single-use, plastic diapers are disposed of every year in the United States. This creates nearly 7.6 billion pounds of non-biodegradable waste being dumped into our landfills. Every. Year…..Ew.
Why not offset this alarming statistic and utilize a cloth diaper service? There are some great services that pick-up diapers for cleaning and drop off clean ones. Like Luludew in Southern California.
2. Consider organic or recycled cotton, organic hemp or organic linen clothing
It’s estimated that clothing is responsible for about 3% to 6.7% of global human-caused CO2 emissions and that as much as 20% to 35% of all primary source microplastics in the marine environment are fibers from use of synthetic clothing. (source: MDPI). Look for organic or recycled cotton, organic hemp or organic linen clothing that keeps the life cycle of your little ones clothing in mind, like Bokk Baby, Quincy Mae or Kate Quinn.
3. Opt for wooden toys instead of plastic
BPA, a chemical found in many plastic toys, can cause harmful developmental effects in infants and young children. Wood, on the other hand, doesn’t contain any of the chemicals that are used in plastic toys. And it is biodegradable, durable and stylish, too!
4. Upcycle with hand-me-downs
Reach out to friends or relatives to see if they’ve held onto any of their kids’ old baby clothes. You can find some real gems this way and you will accumulate less “stuff” that your baby will quickly outgrow anyway.
5. Donate
When your baby has outgrown their clothes, pay it forward by handing it down to another new parent, or check out charities to donate them to, like Baby2Baby. Doing this can instill the value of giving to others as well as a respect for the environment at a young age.
