Reducing Family Impact

Maximize Your Impact

The easiest way to maximize your impact in regards to family emissions is to keep the family size small. 

Less mouths to feed, less buts to transport, less shoes to wear through, and less toys to buy.

If you already have kids, then this might be the page for you, but if you are in the planning stages or unsure if you want kids, click the Unwanted Pregnancy button to learn about how to avoid having a bigger family than you want or can support.

How To Reduce Our Impact While Raising Kids

Major Sources of Waste

This article lists the some of the greatest sources of environmental harm per year while raising an average infant as (slightly edited).

ParentMap - it’s our business to build an inclusive community that informs, engages and inspires Puget Sound parents and families.

Simple, Thrifty, Eco-Friendly Solutions

Tools, Apps, & Guides

Click the button below to learn about the concept of "enough". Learn what the average person needs to live comfortably, and find tools/info that can help you work out what "enough" means for your family.

The following sections explore how to go about implementing these solutions.

Nappies/Diapers

"Approximately 90-95% of American babies use 27.4 billion single-use, plastic diapers every year. This generates 7.6 billion pounds of garbage each year—enough waste to fill Yankee Stadium 15 times over, or stretch to the moon and back 9 times. Every year.

For some families and communities, single use nappies can make up the half the non-compostable waste.

Click the Nappies/Diapers button to learn more about ways to reduce nappy waste, cleaning, and other general information.

Click the Libraries button to see if you can borrow or rent an affordable kit, so you can decide if cloth nappies are right your your family.

Modern cloth nappies can be a fairly expensive investment for most parents (especially with the rising cost of everyday living), and not all communities have nappy libraries, so we've gathered a directory of charities that provide free nappies, as well as government programs that offer coupons or rebates. There are also educational workshops listed. Some of which are required to receive free kits, while others provide free kits as a "gift" for finishing the workshop. Some workshops are in person and/or online.

The DIY page offers videos and written guides in various language, plus free patterns for people who want to try making their own nappies. These can be made from many materials, even upcycled clothing and terry cloth for the absorbent inner pad.

Eco-Friendly Baby Food

The suggestions in the link to the right talk about getting only the best food and using a blender, but the main rules of feeding a baby include starting out slow with simple single-ingredient foods, and avoiding certain foods like peanuts and honey which can be particularly dangerous for infants.

Since the dawn of humanity, mothers have been chewing up food for their babies, but simply using a fork or spoon is just as serviceable so long as the food is soft enough for a baby to eat safely. 

Baby food companies have had many recalls and scandals concerning the lead content in baby food as well as other safety scares. The pouches that many baby foods come in are generally not recyclable, and some communities don't have the facilities to recycle or reclaim glass jars or lids. Making food at home, even if not organic or with other fancy labeling can help you save money, protect the environment, and be just as safe or safer than what you can buy from corporations.

Baby-Friendly Recipes

Transportation

Travel makes up a big part of our pollution, especially if you drive a fossil fuel vehicle. Taking the bus, train, or using person-powered modes of transit from walking to biking can all make a big impact not only on climate change, but in our personal health, and the air quality around our communities. A growing number of school districts around the world are now banning parents from driving their kids to school as it causes traffic jams and subsequent smog increases around the school grounds, something which is particularly dangerous for growing brains! New research is even finding that noise pollution from traffic around schools negatively affecting children's cognitive abilities.

Active Transit

This is the best option for shorter distances, including walking, cycling, skateboarding, roller skating, or even paddling by boat.

Fun & Play

A shocking number of toys are not only plastic (which can contain dangerous chemicals including PFAS), but also heavy metals such as cadmium and lead. Older toys are often full of these toxic chemicals, so it's worth looking for eco-friendly alternatives. 

Aside from toys, playing in nature, crafting and DIY recycling projects can help stimulate learning, improve confidence, while also improve mental and physical health.

This section contains a selection of examples and guides to eco-friendly, child-safe play:


Suggested Reading

This section is for books and audio books.

Grants & Funding

Oceana

Australia

Western Australia