Parenting
fromWIRED
10 hours agoThe Moms Who Sponcon Their Daughters' First Periods
Momfluencers face immense pressure to present idealized motherhood while risking their children's safety and well-being online.
"Planning a sustainable wedding starts with prioritising what's important to you and shutting out the consumerist noise. That way, from the get-go you have a guiding principle that informs each decision."
Shredded paper is especially difficult to recycle, so many programs will not accept it. Shredding accelerates fiber shortening and lowers the paper grade from high-grade to mixed-grade. Mixed-grade paper is still recyclable, but it ends up baled and processed into products like paper towels and packing paper.
We were $16,000 out of pocket, with weekly blood work, invasive ultrasounds, sperm quality testing, genetic testing, eating well, exercising, daily cold plunging, expensive vitamins, excessive pregnancy testing and more tears than I would like to remember. We were at a loss, with an official diagnosis of unexplained infertility.
While you might assume that potato chip bags or other snack bags are recyclable, most are made from mixed materials. This means that the bags may contain plastic on the outside and an inner lining of plastic and aluminum film or foil. While the individual materials may be recyclable on their own, the only way they could be used is if the recycling facility has the means by which to separate the materials.
Your eyes don't deceive you. The use of polyester has ballooned with time, according to Henry Navarro Delgado, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's school of fashion. It's partly because polyester can be quite useful, he said. It is a type of plastic made from petroleum compounds that are cooled and stretched into yarn, according to Michael Palladino, a fashion industry veteran and lecturer at Kingsborough Community College's business of fashion program in New York.
These have become my absolute favorite bottles. The way they dispense the milk somehow makes it so my babies have less belly bubbles and I LOVE it! The size fits 6oz, so perfect for a full meal. I appreciate that the bottle matches the milk temp, so if it gets warmed too much, I'll know! The bottles' quality is amazing; they have lasted us so long. The flow is adjustable which is helpful when your baby is super hungry,
I'll be honest: Washing my actual pillows (not just the cases) used to be one of those chores I knew I should be doing, but rarely actually did. As long as my pillows were tucked inside clean pillowcases, I convinced myself they were fine. But that all changed after I came across this article on Apartment Therapy where three popular pillow-washing methods were put to the test.
"Ironically, many if not most of these 'sustainability' projects remain disassociated from companies' core procurement strategies, meaning the coffee produced from these projects is not necessarily bought by the companies involved, or only in minimal quantities," the paper states. "And for the coffee that is purchased, prices do not factor into the project design, despite the fact that price is the single variable impacting farmer income that is in the direct control of companies."
If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, you may find yourself needing to use a lot of disposable plastic products, from plastic bags to plastic wrap. While these tools can come in handy once in a while, a lot of sustainability- and health-conscious home cooks try to avoid them as much as possible. There are concerns that chemicals leached from plastic wrap could cause health issues, and being disposable and decidedly not biodegradable, many view these types of food storage tools as bad for the environment as well (and a great way to cut down on plastic waste in the kitchen).
When you lack the good fortune of having an in-unit washer and dryer like I do, you have to be extra judicious about how many times you wear clothes before tossing them in the hamper. Laundry piles up quickly, after all, and I refuse to go to the laundromat more often than necessary. The only issue with re-wearing clothing items is that they wrinkle - fast - and they don't always smell daisy-fresh, if you catch my drift.
For many American parents, colic and reflux are among the most stressful challenges during the first months of life. Endless crying, discomfort after feedings, arching of the back, spit-up, gas... when a baby is hurting, the entire family feels it. While many factors can contribute to colic and reflux, the choice of baby bottle and nipple plays a much bigger role than most parents realize. Choosing the right baby bottle can greatly influence your baby's feeding experience.
Then we circled back to the question that won't leave us alone. Do we bring a second child into this world, or do we stop at one? It's the most intimate climate question I've ever faced. Not a reusable bag choice. Not a diet tweak. A lifelong decision that will shape our home, our time, and yes, our footprint. I'm not alone in wrestling with this.
Using one in place of a cloth dinner napkin was unacceptable, and if I ever used more than a single perforated sheet to wipe up a spill then I'd expect to hear about it. It wasn't until I was a fully grown adult, responsible for stocking my own kitchen, that I understood why: Paper towels aren't cheap! They're also super wasteful, which is why I've made the switch to the more sustainable and budget-friendly Stasher Reusable Swedish Dishcloths - and I'm never going back.
Europe's supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum. Brands using plastic packaging from Kraft's Heinz Beanz to Mondelez's Philadelphia use materials made by the plastic manufacturing arm of the oil company Saudi Aramco. The Saudi state-owned holding opposes production cuts under the UN plastic treaty and is the world's largest corporate greenhouse-gas emitter (over 70m tonnes up to 2023).