It’s back-to-school time and EWG came out with their list of eco-friendly tips for buying products for your kids – including:

1) Look for pencils made from sustainable wood or recycled newspaper, without any paint or coatings

2) Look for hand soap and hand sanitizers without triclosan, triclocarbon or fragrance

3) Avoid buying polymer clay (the kind that stays soft at room temperature and hardens in the oven because it is made from PVC and has phthalates.

Check out the full list on the EWG and happy back to school!!

Did you ever notice that the greatest “make life easy” inventions seem to come from parents who have had to deal with some kind of frustration or inefficiency for long enough that they decide they can come up with an ingenious solution? Well I have found another one of these inventions. And, as I find with most of these types of things, it’s a “duh- why didn’t I think of that??” idea. This is specifically geared toward anyone who has to carry an Epi-Pen – a prescription injector that is for life-threatening allergies like food allergies or bee sting allergies. These injectors need to be on parents of children who suffer from the allergies at all times. A matter of 1-2 minutes can mean life or death (so keeping one “nearby, in the car for instance, can be a deadly mistake). The unfortunate thing is, they are awkward to carry, and you typically need to keep two on hand, making it doubly awkward.

But fine, no worries. You can pop them in your pocketbook (mom) or in your back pocket (dad) when going out. But what happens when the child gets older and needs to have them on hand but is going somewhere without his or her backpack? Or what if you are an adult who suffers from an allergy and you want to go out for a run, or do something where carrying a bag is not convenient? Since fanny-packs are long out of fashion, there have been few alternatives, other than carrying the “pens” in your hand.

So along comes a pair of ingenious moms. They, like me, became concerned about their nut-allergy kids as they got older and started going off on their own. A bike ride to a friend’s house, a trip into the town center for an ice cream, a soccer practice. What could they do to ensure that the Epi-Pens would be on hand? So they put their heads together and came up with a simple yet smart solution – called Take In Case. It’s a sleeve made of a stretchy material that has a little padding. The whole thing measures about 6 inches wide and 8 inches long, and it has two pockets that securely hold an Epi Pen each. VOILA! Now any child (recommended ages 10 and up) or adult can carry the Epi Pens on their arm or calf and keep their hands free.

We have been using this for a couple of weeks now and it has been great. My son is 10 years old but is, um, a little “slender” (ok – he’s as skinny as a rail) so it’s a little big for his arm, but he still puts it there anyway, and he actually doesn’t mind carrying it. Not bad!

Check out this site TakeInCase.com for a lot more information, and to find out how to order the case. From my perspective, it’s $25 well spent. And a portion of the sale goes to support food allergy research as well!

In my Yubo Lunchbox review posting, I wrote about this very cool new lunchbox system. And they are actually giving one away for FREE in celebration of Earth Day! But hurry – you must submit your entry by 4/22.

Celebrate the planet with yubo’s Mother Earth Photo Contest. In honor of Earth Day, yubo is holding a contest asking eco-conscious kids to submit their favorite/best “Mother Earth” photos. yubo will collect photo submissions and choose a winner based on the guidelines below. yubo will then create faceplates from the winning photos and offer them for sale as Mother Earth faceplate designs (as seen below). Net profits from the sale of the Mother Earth faceplates will go to the Earth Day Network. Each entrant will receive $10 off a yubo purchase and the winner will receive $50!

Who: Entrants must be under the age of 11 in order to qualify to win.

What: Photos will be judged based on originality, creativity, photo composition and how well the pictures answer the question: ‘What does Earth Day mean to you?’.

When: Deadline for entry is 4/16/10. The winner will be chosen and announced on 4/22/10, the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day.

How: Each entrant MUST submit 2 corresponding original photos (MUST be taken by person entering contest). Become a yubo Facebook Fan and upload the 2 images to the yubo Facebook Fan Page.

Good luck!!

The people at GetYubo.com sent me a very cool Yubo lunchbox to check out. I was intrigued by the lunchbox when I read about it online. It can be customized with different faceplates (you can even have your child’s drawing or photo used for a faceplate). Plus, it is made of recyclable plastic (very nice!) that’s anti-microbial and it’s BPA free. Even more handy, is that it comes with its own food containers that are BPA-free, and a perfectly-shaped-for-the-lunchbox, flat (yea!) ice pack. And not only that, they are giving a lunchbox away for FREE in celebration of Earth Day. (see Yubo Giveaway posting for details)

When I received the lunchbox, I immediately loved it. It’s adorable, bright and is incredibly easy to clean up. I find that the “soft” cooler-bag type lunchboxes get kinda stinky and icky after awhile and they are so hard to get clean. This lunchbox comes completely apart and you can wash each section (personally, even though it’s BPA-free and they say it’s dishwasher safe, I would still wash it by hand).

It really is a very clever design, and I’m impressed with the concept. As with so many cool products out there, this was designed by a mom and dad, Cyndi and Paul Pedrazzi, who were getting tired of the endless plastic baggies they used for their two daughter’s lunches each day. Not to mention the foul odors that accumulate in the typical lunch boxes. So they literally approached an award-winning design company, Whipsaw, in Silicon Valley (they also designed LeapFrog’s LeapPad). And they have gotten tons of press coverage – check out all of chatter on the Press page of their website.

I will say, there were a few things that I think could be improved:

• The design is really best for smaller children – maybe 5 and under? My 7 year old thought it was very cool but said he wouldn’t bring it to school. He does think it would be fun for bringing snacks on short trips.
• On the same note, the food containers are too small for bigger kids. My boys have to bring a snack and a lunch to school each day and these containers wouldn’t fit all the food they need. There also isn’t a place for a sports bottle or other reusable water bottle for drinks.
• The food containers are very cute and I love that  they are BPA free, but I did think that the tops seemed a little loose and they were a little leaky for liquidy foods (like yogurt). That said, I do appreciate the fact that the lids come off easily. My boys complain about some of the containers where the lids are so hard to pull off. So I’m on both sides of that one, I guess!

But definitely check this site out for your little ones. Perfect for “lunch bunch” at preschool or lunches for daycare. The kids will love picking out the faceplate. And who knows, maybe someday they’ll have a bigger version for bigger kids!

This morning on NPR there was a report that indicated that it isn’t just toys from China that you have to worry about. Let’s all groan together. I found this report to be truly eye-opening. A Michigan non-profit group called The Ecology Center, tested about 1500 toys including stuffed animals, books, games, action figures and other products. The scary part – they found that nearly 1/3 of the products (about 500 of them) have “significant levels of lead, arsenic and other chemicals. The results showed no consistent correlation between the presence of toxic chemicals in toys and where they were made or how much they cost.” YIPES!
The worst offenders? Cheap jewelry, bath toys and infant books.

Lead was one of biggest issues. Yes, toys made in China were more likely to have lead than toys made elsewhere. But not by much! 21% of toys (1 in 5) made in China were found to have high or moderate levels of lead. But 16% (nearly 1 in 6!) made elsewhere were also found to have unacceptable levels of lead. Of toys made in the US – 35% had some detectable level of lead!

What can you do? First – be very (very) selective about the toys you buy this holiday season. But be also glad that stricter regulations will come into effect next year.

To check out the NPR report click here

Christine, our GG consultant in Maryland/DC, sent me this link to a great piece that the ABC affiliate in Boston did on make-up and young girls. In it they quote an EWG study on girls from across the country, that “discovered that girls’ blood and urine tested positive for the presence of an average of 16 toxins.” The tests cannot prove definitively that the toxins came from beauty products or personal care products, but the toxins are the same ones that are definitely found in many topical products. And girls are using products like that at younger and younger ages. Why? To look “grown up.” I don’t know about you, but I think kids grow up fast enough these days. I’m not sure we need to encourage it more – especially if it is exposing them unnecessarily to toxins that can impact their development.

Check out the article:
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/health/17876176/detail.html?rss=bos&taf=bos

As you may have started to hear in the news, there’s a lot of talk about BPA – a chemical that can leach into our food products through can liners and #7 plastics. For all of us who fed our children in plastic bottles and sippy cups, this news is pretty disturbing.

Taken from the EWG blog:
In April of 2008, the National Toxicology Program raised concerns that exposure to BPA during pregnancy and childhood could impact the developing breast and prostate, hasten puberty, and affect behavior in American children. UGGHHHHHHH.

So now you’re probably saying, “I give up”, right? What more can I do? It seems like everything I eat, drink, put on my skin etc. has dangers! Well, actually yes – kinda. But my theory is – do what you can. Reduce risk and exposure where you can. I’m not suggesting that people stop eating canned food entirely or don’t ever drink out of a bottle made from #7 plastic (which, mind you INCLUDES the big 5 gallon jugs of Poland Springs or whatever brand of water used at water coolers in offices all over the country!). But – don’t do it if you don’t have to. I now walk down the hall at my consulting job to get the filtered water, passing by the Poland Springs cooler. I threw out our Nalgene water bottles and went back to the (cheaper!) #2 plastic, squeeze-type sports bottles. Both of those are pretty easy changes – and make me feel a little better.

Now, if I had infants that needed bottles? That might be more challenging. But as I’ve read recently, the glass bottles are not nearly as scary as you might think. One person said in the 2 years she used them, it only broke once – when it fell onto a ceramic floor.

Anyway – for more great information, I found the Boston Globe had a Q&A article about BPA this week and there’s also the link to their actual phone call Q&A, and there’s also the EWG blog cheatsheet and other links from there. I also noticed that there was a Boston Globe article today that stated that John Kerry and 5 other senators are pushing for legislation to ban BPA from children’s products. I’ll have to keep tabs on that one!