The Green Parent

You know its Monday when your day starts off with a screaming toddler, a juice spill that reaches from one end of the counter to the other, and a clogged sink drain. The toddler and the spill I can handle with a snack and a towel, respectively. But how can I take care of the [...]

Last weekend, after slathering both of my daughters head-to-toe with sunscreen, I headed outside for an afternoon of gardening only to realize that I forgot to lather up my own lily-white skin. Subsequently I obtained my first (and hopefully last) sunburn of the summer season. Sunscreen is as pivotal to summer fun as bathing suits [...]

I don’t know what concerns me more; the number and type of chemicals that we use to grow “food” in this country, or the fact that we will soon no longer have any reliable information about the number and type of chemicals that we use to grow “food” in this country. Here’s the scoop… In [...]

BPA (or Bishpenol-A) is a chemical substance used to make stuff like polycarbonate plastics, epoxy resins (to line food containers) and white dental sealants. It is also an additive in the plastics used to make some children’s toys. The bad news is that BPA has made headlines recently as it has been linked to nasty [...]

Every year, Americans use 10,000 gallons of water, 70 million pounds of pesticides and over $5 billion dollars worth of fertilizers in order to get those “green” lawns to which we are so obviously addicted. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on [...]

Do you remember that post a few weeks ago about the alarming levels of prescription medications in our water supply? Did it leave you wondering how you should dispose of your medications so that they don’t wind up polluting the planet? It did for a couple of motivated high school teachers and students. And the [...]

In search of a good cup of coffee this morning? You certainly aren’t the only one…in the U.S. alone, 2.4 billion pounds of coffee are sold each year. Coffee is the second largest agricultural crop in the world, after cotton. It is also the third most heavily sprayed crop in the world; cotton and tobacco [...]

Spring is here! Time to throw open those windows and wipe away the mounds of dust and grime that accumulated over winter. But don’t fill your house up with nasty chemicals while you clean. Get a green clean using these simple steps: Declutter: Clean out the clutter by going from room to room and getting [...]

Teflon was all the rage in the 80s with its synthetic non-stick properties that allowed an egg to slide right off the pan. But fast forward three decades and we now know that the very chemiclas that make Teflon (and similar coatings) so slippery, namely polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA) break down at high [...]