For My Kids is a company that produce all natural herbal products that are beneficial for your children and our planet. They’re beneficial in the way that they replace some of the incredibly harmful chemicals that are found in everyday household cleaners and personal care products.

I was sent the “All-Natural Alternative to Antibacterial Disinfectants”, “All-Natural Hand Wash”, “All-Natural Lip Balm”, and “All-Natural Comfrey Salve”. The For My Kids range was created by Christine Stewart who realised that the chemicals she was using around her office and home could be potentially very damaging to her new baby. On top of that there are over one million poisonings in North America each year, with 60% of these being from children under six who have eaten household cleaners.

The first product made was the All-Natural Alternative to Antibacterial Disinfectants which was based on the famous Vinegar of the Four Thieves formula, named after some 17th century thieves who stole from homes of the sick without getting ill themselves. It contains organic herbs and spices (lavender, rosemary, rue, wormwood, sage, peppermint, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, calamus and garlic), organic camphor oil and distilled white vinegar.

The “All-Natural Hand Wash” makes no claims about being antibacterial, but it smells nice and my hands “feel” clean after using, and they definitely looked clean. The vegan lip balm certainly works well, being vanilla it smelt nice and the only part that wasn’t listed as organic was the candelilla wax, which comes from a small shrub in Mexico and southwest USA, so at the very least is natural.

Prices start from $4.59 and they’re fantastic alternatives to the popular non-eco products filling up shelves in your local store..

It may be called For My Kids, but it’s not just for kids. Check them out at For My Kids. Plus you can read more eco product reviews over at Life Goggles.

It’s hard to remember what the world was like before we found out about climate change. For children it’s probably impossible. Yet ten or fifteen years ago Greens were still perceived as slightly crazy, unrealistic misfits – people who refused to engage in the eternal political battle between right and left, but instead wanted to send humanity back to the Dark Ages.

With Green politics rapidly becoming mainstream and the Environment high on everyone’s list of important subjects, we’re moving into new territory. The old campaigners from the 1970s are suddenly discovering that politicians and pundits are listening to them, and you can hardly pick up a newspaper or open a web page without somebody telling you how to Green up some aspect of your life. Rarely a day goes by without an alarming news story about melting ice or vanishing species. In fact the news story that doesn’t have climate change as an important component is now as rare as the Panamanian Golden Frog.

News and opinions inevitably filter from the adult world into the playground, and children are worried. A government-sponsored UK survey of primary (4-11) education last year found that kids were pessimistic about the future and concerned about everything from climate change to trade injustice. Many equated these huge issues (which they felt powerless to address) to their immediate environmental problems – traffic, bullying and so on – creating a general climate of anxiety.

This has worsened a tendency that should alarm environmentalists across the spectrum: children’s abandonment of the real world in favour of TV, the internet and fantasy fiction. A recent editorial in the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust magazine suggested that children’s lack of enthusiasm for nature (in reality, rather than on TV) did not bode well for wildlife organisations that rely both on the work of enthusiastic volunteers and donations from supporters. The people currently filling the ranks and the coffers of the RSPB and other organisations developed their passions when they were children, but if our children spend their free time at home (or in manmade playgrounds), how can they do the same?

Other factors are at work here, for instance the misguided health and safety rules that make it so hard for schools to arrange trips. My son went to a wonderful pre-school set beside a city farm, yet the kids never went to the farm during school time because to take them fifty metres required supervision at a ratio of one adult for every three children.

If children are raised in these surroundings, driven everywhere in cars and offered the easy solace of the bedroom computer, it’s no wonder they find the real world alarming. Add to this fears of climate change and you have a generation ill-equipped to face any sort of challenge, never mind the ones our kids are likely to encounter.

Yet many children want to be active and informed citizens, and thankfully they are now getting more and more opportunities to do so. The international organisation Eco-schools (www.eco-schools.org) is one that doesn’t yet have the cachet of Greenpeace, but it could prove a vital force for change. Some 40,000 schools around the world (8,000 plus in the UK) have signed up to this programme designed to help schools teach kids about a whole range of Green issues and carry out practical work.

A glance at the nine topic areas listed on the UK website (www.eco-schools.org.uk) shows that this programme goes way beyond light bulbs and composting. It is, in fact, a revolutionary exercise in consciousness-raising, covering everything from Fair Trade to Biodiversity. It insists on the importance of children leaving the classroom and experiencing the world as much as possible, emphasizes that the Environment is all around us and ours to look after, and empowers students by putting the school council rather than teaching staff at the centre of the decision-making process.

Of course schools can ignore the whole thing if they choose, but this is part of a wider movement to encourage and facilitate children’s involvement with their environment. A few years ago play workers in the city of Bath launched a Play Rangers scheme, which offered children adult supervision in local parks, encouraged adventurous play and gave lessons in outdoorsy skills. Now local authorities all over the country are launching similar schemes, and children are coming out to play.

Personally, I am less excited about the much more loudly-trumpeted Greening of children’s TV and websites. While it might be inspiring for children to see their favourite characters saving the planet, the children themselves are still staring at a screen. If we want a new generation of eco-warriors to stand up to governments and corporations in the future, they need the opportunity to fall in love with the world around them and to develop the strength and imagination to become its protectors.

James Russell is the author of How to Turn Your Parents Green
howtoturnyourparentsgreen.blogspot.com

How To Turn Your Parents Green is written by James Russell, illustrated by Øivind Hovland and was supplied by Charlie at Green Books.

Aimed at kids ‘from 8-80′ How To Turn Your Parents Green is a book for a future generation of eco warriors. Presenting the challenge to be green as a battle of the Greens versus the Groans (ungreen adults) the book urging children to become green by fining their parents if they’re not environmentally-friendly.

But it’s more than that, it tries to put the pester power that kids have to good use – turn it away from sweets and candy to switching off the tap and buying local food. And it does this with the help of humorous phrases and great drawings by Øivind Hovland.

Although I make the ludicrous age range for this book, I’m admittedly quite a bit older than those it’s really aimed at. So at first the phrases ‘Ghastly Global Warming’, Hellish Halogens’ and other similarly alliterate and capital lettered ones got on my nerves. But after a while I got used to it and ‘Lazy Train to Chubville’ got me smiling.

While humorous, the book is also informative and it does this cleverly by asking questions but then often making up one of the answers just to make you smile. It nicely explained what a leachate is (rubbish sludge mixed with rainwater) and other facts are presented simply and in a way that a child could easily relate to a parent.

The explanations of subjects like importing fruit from abroad or having a standby button on the TV show how ridiculous they are and that the reader shouldn’t stand for such practices. Luckily it then tells you what you can do about them and gives examples of things done in the past – such as the boy who saved the Severn Beach railway line. Practical examples, goals and checklists make it almost an activity book and even inspired me to do more.

Apart from my initial problem of getting into the book, once you’re used to the style it makes an enjoyable and informative read for all ages. Aimed at kids changing their parents’ habits (fining them for using carrier bags etc), it also has useful tips for turning teachers green and also becoming a green citizen yourself.

Available at from Green Books, How To Turn Your Parents Green costs £6.50, is 91 pages, is printed on Nine Lives recycled paper and published by Tangent Books.

Looking forward or wanting to get rid of one of your old computers? There are several ways you can do go get rid of your old computer(s) First you should know that everything electronic contains harmful chemicals and materials that can be recycled like glass, plastic, gold, copper, aluminum. Now to properly dispose of your computer you will need to bring it to many places that will recycle recyclable parts and dispose of the harmful chemicals carefully. There are many ways to properly dispose of your computer.

One way you can recycle your computer is to ask where you had bought your computer and see if they have a recycling program and sometimes they may only take your old computer when you buy a new computer from them.

Next see if a company like Dell or HP has a free recycling program or see if you can recycle your computer with them when you buy a new computer. Also I know Apple has a recycling program when you buy a new computer from them and you can recycle your old computer and when you buy a new ipod you can recycle all of your old ipods and cell phones for free.

Next you can try going to your local recycling center and ask if they have a recycling program for computers and or other electronics most of the time they should have a recycling program but it varies in different towns or see if there is a recycling program in a nearby city that would take it.

If the first few didn’t work or if your computer is still usable you can do one of these two. You can advertise your computer/electronics in the buy and sell/newspaper. Or you can donate it to a local school, shelter, organization and you will know your computer will be used for a good cause and a lot of the time you may even get a tax deduction for donating your computer.

There may be many other ways to recycle your computer but when you do recycle your computer you may have to pay a small free or sometimes it may cost you nothing.

A few days a go I had found a article in Good Housekeeping which talked about what are these fancy names we put on products in the store like “natural” and “no CFC’s” and what they really mean to the consumer. I had read this article and knew about most of the labels and learned some about these labels but there was one that I was curious what it really means when it is labeled so I thought I would do some some research on this label. The label I was curious and done some research on was “organic” the information I had found online was kinda interesting. So heres what I had found out about organic labels.

Organic is a agriculture product made without pesticide, harmful chemicals, hormones. You can find “organic” on most anything but most of the time it is not completely organic unless you see one of many logo’s like these.

These logo’s on products found in groceries stores are quite hard to get placed and certified on a product because they test just about everything from fertilizers to what the wood was treated with on fences and if one thing that is tested as “modified” the produce won’t be certified to sell as organic. Only 100% organic products may use the organic seal. if a product is 95% is organic they can’t put the organic seal but they can say it is a organic substance. If the product is at least 70% they only can label up to three items that are organic. finally if a item has less than 70% organic they can’t say its organic anywhere on the item. for more information visit this site http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/FactSheets/Backgrounder.htm Heres the actual chart that was in the magazine Good Housekeeping. In other words your best bet will be finding a product that has a certified seal that states that it is certified “organic” on the product you want to buy.

Before you buy something try to remember what the correct labels for a item should be and what labels you should not buy into on a certain product.

I’m not sure any of this information applies to people in the U.K. but it certain it does apply to the people in U.S.A.