Kids Vids Newsletter

It has been more than 35 years since the passionate environmentalist and senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson proposed the first nationwide protest "to shake up the political establishment and force the issue of (environmental consciousness) onto the national agenda", and today Earth Day has become a worldwide call to action.

"It was a gamble," Nelson recalls, "but it worked." American Heritage Magazine described it as "one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy" as 20 million Americans supported the demonstration by joining in on rallies for a healthier more sustainable environment nationwide. In 1990 Earth Day went global: over 200 million people in 141 different countries became part of the crusade to save the environment. The United Nations held the first Earth Summit in 1992 and by the year 2000 the Internet had provided information from 5,000 environmental groups to hundreds of millions of people worldwide in 184 different countries.

Officially, Earth Day is April 22, but in light of current evidence and in the wake of disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, it is apparent that we need to be more earth conscious everyday. Small actions by every one of us collectively have very big effects on the world as a whole. An important contribution adults can make is to educate our children in the importance of sustainability and how it will affect their lives and the lives of generations to come.

Earth Day is an important day to be proactive about environmental issues, to send a message to our government leaders that we care about sustainability, and to instill the importance of ecology in our children. Check your local newspaper for events in your area, or go to the Earth Day Event Finder to see what is happening near you.

"As the father of Earth Day, (Senator Nelson) is the grandfather of all that grew out of that event: the Environmental Protection Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act," read the proclamation from President Clinton as he honored Nelson with the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. Gaylord Nelson passed away on July 3, 2005, at the age of 89.

Schools are generally much more densely populated than commercial office spaces, with children who are notorious for creating mess. Cleaning products are vital in keeping your school clean and healthy, however they can vary greatly in acute toxicity and biodegradability. When you purchase products that pose no risk to your children’s health, you also get an added benefit of products that have little environmental impact and reduce the amount of hazardous and toxic substances entering the waste stream. Environmentally Preferred Purchasing (EPP) takes prevention seriously. The EPA defines EPP as products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products that serve the same purpose.

Some cleaning products contain volatile organic compounds, which are chemicals that evaporate easily and can escape during product use. These chemicals add to indoor air pollution and can be risky to children, especially those with asthma or other respiratory problems. They can also be dangerous to the maintenance staff that uses them.

For the health and safety of your students and staff, choose products that:

• Contain no known carcinogens
  


• Have neutral PH
  


• Are non-irritating to eyes and skin
  


• Are free of, or low in, Volatile Organic Compounds
  


• Avoid fragrances and dyes
  


• Are non-flammable
  


• Are not packaged in aerosol/spray cans
  


• Provide dispensing systems that minimize exposure to concentrated solutions

When a product contains a chemical that is not biodegradable, it is a hazard to the environment: its chemicals can enter the food chain when it is dumped down a drain and consumed by aquatic plants and animals. Chemical concentrations can increase throughout the food chain as these plants and animals are consumed by larger animals, eventually creating a hazard to humans.

Product packaging is another concern as it can account for a significant portion of that products' contribution to the solid waste stream. To lessen the pressure on our landfills, you should consider products that come in concentrated form and use recovered materials for packaging.

To protect the environment, choose products that:

• Are biodegradable


• Contain no ozone depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons and chlorinated solvents


• Are made from renewable resources such as corn (corn starch), coconut oils and citrus (orange peels)


• Are sold with reduced packaging for both product and shipping container


• Are packaged in a refillable or recyclable container


• Can be used for more than one task to reduce waste containers and the need store several products

Using green cleaning products may take some getting used to by your janitorial staff, but the benefits will last for generations. To get more information about environmentally preferable purchasing, visit the EPA's Healthy School Environment Resources page.

by Ron Turowski
It's April and it's snowing in Washington DC, the East coast is gripped in a cold snap, California is undergoing drought conditions, and to make matters worse, every month I am faced with rising utility bills and gasoline prices. Meanwhile my kids had been talking to me about conservation, and so when we as a family decided to become more eco-friendly, we were surprised by a welcome benefit: lower energy costs.

I started by calling our utility company and by chance they were conducting a free energy inspection, so I scheduled an appointment. An inspector from the utility showed up and the first thing he noticed was that our old single pane windows were leaking badly and needed to be replaced. He also noted that our attic was under-insulated which also lowered the efficiency of our home.

The initial costs of these upgrades were going to take a serious chunk out of our savings and I was a little concerned about this. Fortunately my son is very bright. He did a survey of our garbage and concluded that we threw away a great deal of recyclable materials. So he engineered a system to collect and separate the paper, plastic, aluminum and glass from our garbage. Now we throw away half the amount we used to, and all of those recyclables go to the local recycle center for an average extra income of around $50 per month. I planned on that money to help offset our home upgrades over the next 18 months and then start to go toward my son's college fund, but when I calculated the increase in our property value and noticed that our gas bill had been slashed by 25%, I immediately started putting that money toward his college fund.


Replace those tungsten lightbulbs

If every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that by replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs at the same minimal rate, Americans would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year.

When I changed the tungsten bulbs in my house to compact fluorescents, I noticed an 11% drop in my electric bill. And because Compact fluorescent light bulbs use at least two-thirds less energy than standard incandescent bulbs to provide the same amount of light, and they last up to 10 times longer, they save consumers on average, $30 over the life of the bulb.

Now I was on a roll and decided to have a look at our water situation. We live in Southern California, which is arid, so my family of 4 likes to take long showers and we water the lawn on a daily basis. By replacing the showerheads with the water saver type and the sprinklers with more efficient heads, and watering the lawn at night, our water usage went down by 26% per month.

Check with your local utilities

Call your local utility company and ask what programs they have for greening your home. For me, the gas company came out for a free energy inspection and had a program to help defray the cost of new, efficient windows. The Electric Company had a program that helped me buy the compact fluorescents I put in my home for only $1 each.

As you can see there are things every person can do to conserve energy and natural resources and in some instances, save money. The cost of most of these things is a little extra time, but when I think of my son and daughter who are really just starting out in this world and I know that we did something to help give them a better world to live in, I know it was well worth the small sacrifice.