Twenty six years ago, I was 26-years younger (duh!) and didn’t mind the hassle of handling baby diapers. Now, there’s a new baby in the house. Right, a 26-year old and a 5-month year old. You can stop laughing now.

Image by Lance McCord

Messing around with cloth diapers is a pain, and with all the water used I am not sure it’s the best alternative anyway. But, disposable diapers don’t sit well with us. And, we can’t let the baby run around with her bottom out. What to do?

NaturalPath has a list of four green options for disposable diapers.

1. “Tushies brand diapers are gel free and made with non-chlorine bleached woodpulp and conventional cotton for natural high absorbency.” I explained that to Mia (my little girl) and she responded with a “I like the name” smile.

2. “Seventh Generation’s diapers and training pants are extremely absorbant and chlorine-free (chlorine bleaching, used in most mainstream diapers, produces the pollutant dioxin).” Mia asked, “Papa, what generation am I?” She didn’t like the name.

3. “The Swedish-based Nature Boy and Girl diapers feature a GMO-free cornstarch cover, rather than the typical plastic (making them compostable in municipal facilities). Mia’s response was “Huh?!”

4. “Tendercare diapers are made by Tushies in the US, but contain SAP and woodpulp, rather than cotton.” Not so absorbent say moms but they are thin and easy to get around in. Yeah, how would the mom’s know unless they … okay, I don’t want to think about that.

Honey! Let’s see if any of these green options work on Mia. Hmm … price?

Read more at NaturalPath.

Honey! Get the baby, I think we can really clean her up.

In this day and age it’s not enough to just bathe a baby, the baby needs to be kept safe from all sorts of chemicals, many found in cleaning products.

What’s up with that? Chemicals found in household cleaners and air fresheners, for example, have been linked to childhood asthma and asthma-like conditions, among other things.

Honey!!!

Here a few references if you want a safe and healthy baby.

1. Homemade cleaning solutions – Safe alternatives to things with pretty labels on shelves in store. A great start to your cleaning repertoire is distilled white vinegar, baking soda, and tea tree oil.

2. Grist’s Green Guide – a wealth of information for those wishing to clean green. “Just because a product says it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s nontoxic,” says Jeffrey Hollender, CEO of Seventh Generation, which produces genuinely eco-friendly cleaning supplies and household products.

3. The Safe Shopper’s Bible provides much good advice for selecting truly green, effective products and prevents “greenwashing.”

Here’s where you get your answers for Can your hair coloring cause breast cancer? – Is this brand of apple juice safe for babies? – Will the additives in this salad dressing harm you? – Which shampoo won’t sting your eyes?

4. Naturally Clean: The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe and Healthy, Non-Toxic Cleaning- invaluable tips for minimizing your — and your children’s — exposure to hazardous household products and insightful tips on keeping a clean, green nursery.

5. Green Nursery Tips – finally, 10 ways to ready your home for your new baby.

Honey! Get the baby, we got to make some changes.

Remember how horny Labord’s Chameleons are?

There’s a guy in China who’s not going to die young of violent sex and he’s blaming it on a vegetarian lifestyle. Or more precisely, that’s what his doctor is telling him. When the guy saw that friends of his were suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and diabetes he decided to become fit, the vegetarian way.

It worked, but … he also lost his sex drive. The doctors are telling him, “Animal fats are necessary for human beings to maintain nutritional balance. Sex hormones are affected by eating an exclusively vegetarian diet by virtue of the absence of animal fats necessary to stimulate them.”

Maybe this guy, who lives in China’s northern province of Heilongjiang (that’s cold country, southern Siberia cold where there is nothing else to do but, you know…) needs to get him a pet Labord Chameleon, eh? Vegetarian diets cutting into sex drive? I’m not sure.

Do you know the answer?

Japan has ideas out the gazoo when it comes to recycling.  At an upmarket residential area in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward one man is making colorful accent rugs from old clothes, 1960’s-style lamp shades from corrugated plastic board, and  candleholders from old bicycle chains. It’s called the ecoprinka brand with the aim of  “Co-existence with the Earth means enjoying doing ecologically conscious things.”

Another store offers furniture and household goods with a 1960s design with products that have been used for multiple generations of customers. You can buy a motorcycle seat with pipe legs for Y50,000 ($475).

A Finnish ec0-oriented design by Secco attracts young Japanese consumers to bags and cell phone straps made from discarded tire tubes and keyboards. Retailers throughout Japan carry the products. But…the truth of the matter is people often buy discarded or recycled products = junk, only to realize they don’t like the design and they become waste again.

So, are these products really being reused, recycled, or are some people just making money off of other’s guilt at not being ‘green’ enough? It seems to me to be the latter.

How often do people thing they can do things better, improve on the way our planet and all its intricacies have been designed? We reroute rivers, relocate forests, try to make it rain, try to make it stop. One Japanese group has taken the initiative and has successfully reshaped the watermelon. Yup, to be sure. A group in Kagawa Prefecture Japan put growing watermelons into translucent plastic cubes while they were still on the vine, then let them grow.

The reason? To keep them from rolling off the table at supermarkets. Nope. So, it would be easier for them to fit into refrigerators. Remember, it was the Japanese who used to tape women’s feet so they wouldn’t grow also, presumably so it would be easier to get their feet in and out of their mouths when they said something stupid.

Trendshealth is a new magazine in China promoting green living concepts. Zhou Xun is a tiny (yet, BIG) Chinese movie star. (Can you say Zhang Ziyi?) Zhou Xun was also appointed as a National Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program.

But Green-haired Zhou Xun? We don’t mind. And if she get help get one-fourth of the world’s population to be more earth friendly. She can be on my team for sure.

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