Many green parents (and doctors) have long thought that increased exposure to environmental toxins can lead to childhood diseases such as asthma, cancers, birth defects, and developmental disorders. CNN.com even ran a story last week about industrial chemical buildup in children’s bloodstreams. Now, the Shaklee Foundation and HealthyChild.org have teamed up to produce a new DVD that provides information for parents, teachers, school administrators, and child care professionals on five easy steps to create healthy environments for children.

Creating Healthy Environments for Children features Private Practice’s Amy Brenneman as host with Ben Harper providing music. Pediatricians Dr. Philip Landrigan and Dr. Alan Greene provide their expertise, as well. Their five major tips include:

• Avoid using pesticides
• Clean safely
• Help children breathe easier
• Provide healthy food
• Use plastic products wisely.

Pop the DVD in your computers, and you’ll find three tool kits, one each for home, child care centers, and schools, that provide resources for making each environment safer for children. The tool kits also give advice for community outreach and activism on safer environments for children.

The DVD will be released in November and retails for $12.95. More information can be found on HealthyChild.org’s website. HealthyChild.org is also releasing a similar book Healthy Child, Healthy World, in March of 2008

Thriftiness isn’t really "new" or "green"; people have found ways to reuse scrap or discarded items for years. The pre-industrialization U.S. didn’t have what we call "trash." Every bit of scrap and waste from the home was remade, reused in some way, or sold to peddlers where it was eventually recycled. With the Industrial Revolution came more products to buy with new kinds of packaging, and trash as we know it was born.

Dave and Lillian Brummet’s Trash Talk is a book that aims to get back to minimizing waste and finding everyday uses for trash. Think of it as "Hints From Heloise" meets Mother Earth News. The introduction reminds readers that reduce, reuse, and recycle should be precluded by refuse — as in, refusing to buy items that generate a lot of waste. The book is divided into four sections: the first has ideas for reusing common household items (some not-so-common — who has a plethora of old oven racks hanging around?), and the second has plans for habits you can implement that follow the four Rs, like composting, or cutting open toiletries bottles to get all the product out. The third section focuses on tips and habits related to paper, and the brief fourth section gives statistics that remind the reader that the little things do add up.

It’s clear that the authors walk the walk: many of the tips are reuse ideas that I hadn’t heard of, and their extensive gardening background was surprisingly helpful. The home garden seemed to be a playground for reuse. And, again, this seems to be more for the crunchier crowd — it definitely had the vibe of Mother Earth News as opposed to Real Simple. That doesn’t mean that it was packed full of radical ideas; most of the tips and habits are pretty practical for those who are in the process of going green. But there were a few that I know would cause the light-greenest of readers to drop the book and never look back.

There are issues with the text. The editing leaves something to be desired; I don’t know if the format of the book was the best way to present the information. The second section just seemed a catchall for random green-living ideas. Why is there a whole chapter about picking up trash while going on walks in a book marketed as "an inspirational guide to saving time and money through better waste an resource management?" I don’t think there’s really enough material here for a book like this: there’s a lot of unfocused information that, while interesting, didn’t really have a lot to do with solid waste reduction. And for $19.99, you’d think you get a lot more out of a paperback than 190 pages with a lot of white space.

All in all, the book is worth a read, but not a purchase. You’d be better off checking it out from your library, if you can find it.

My problem with The Lazy Environmentalist, green radio host Josh Dorfman's self-proclaimed "guide to easy, stylish, green living" isn't that it lacks information. It's actually a quite comprehensive guide to supporting green companies. I dog-eared multiple pages so I could visit websites of the companies in which I was interested. But it's not so much a guide to green living as it's a guide to green buying. I guess the tone set forth from the brief introduction rubbed me the wrong way:

These innovators make it easy for us to integrate environmental awareness into our lives. They understand that while so many of us are concerned about the environment, we don't always have the time, energy, or inclination to do something about it.

I only wish this was written in a less-than-serious voice. In my mind, if you don't have the "time, energy, or inclination" to do something about the environment, than you can hardly classify yourself as an environmentalist. You are looking to alleviate guilt for your conspicuous consumption, a culture of consumption that is devastating our planet. It's exactly the "culture of convenience" that's waging all-out war on our resources. Consider this passage from the chapter on cars:

There really is something for everyone–even those who drive Hummers, the most colossal of all urban assault vehicles…By offsetting the carbon dioxide emissions spewing from your car's tailpipe, TerraPass offers Hummer drivers eco-salvation.

Eco-salvation for Hummer drivers? A little too, oh, oxymoronic, for my tastes. Lazy is definitely geared towards a more high-end clientele, despite it's mention of Wal-Mart as an organic clothing retailer (Yeah, I know what you are thinking…I can't trust them quite yet, either).

Stepping off of my soapbox, for those of us who do have time, energy, and inclination to do something to lighten our footprint still have to buy goods and services, and Lazy provides a well-laid, well-written plan to finding greener versions of those goods and services. If you have to spend money, you might as well spend it on more sustainable products, right?

There are 22 chapters focusing on different products and services, from home furnishing to energy providers to media outlets (what, no shout out for Green Options?) Each chapter begins with a narrative insight into what practices these eco-companies are establishing to go green, then lists several companies, along with their websites and a brief description of what their business does or produces. Reading about different design innovations companies are using was fascinating (BraveSpace's hollow bamboo tables, anyone?), and I'll definitely check out many of the websites listed. If I'm going to save the planet, though, I've got better things to do.

Last week I wrote about how pet owners can make more sustainable choices when it comes to their pets. A few days later, Green Options received an e-mail from James, a pet owner whose Dalmation, Hamish, suffered grand mal seizures from what James believed were toxic flea/tick medications.

Upon further investigation, it turns out that the EPA didn't even regulate over-the-counter pet products such as these until 1996, and was still phasing out pet products containing certain chemicals as late as last year.

In fact, the Humane Society issued a warning about flea/tick medications, and the Natural Resources Defense Council released a report in 2000 titled Poisons on Pets: Health Hazards from Flea and Tick Products which linked these chemicals found in flea/tick medications to serious health problems in both pets and humans. The main offenders are organophosphate insecticides and carbamates, which interfere with nerve signals in the body. Though meant to work on insects, they can have similar effects on the nervous systems of pets and humans, particularly children because of their developing nervous system. There is also ample evidence to suggest that long-term exposure to products containing such chemicals can produce serious health problems, such as later-in-life cancer and Parkinson's, in children who were exposed at an early age. Kittens and cats are also particularly vulnerable when exposed to OTC products for dogs.

This doesn't mean that all flea/tick medications are dangerous: this mainly applies to older brands of OTC medications. Avoid products that list chlorpyrifos, dichlorvos, phosmet, naled, tetrachlorvinphos, diazinon, malathion, carbaryl, or propoxur in their active ingredients. Take the safe route and always get your pet's medication from your vet–it's not worth the few bucks you'd save by buying products over the counter. There are also safe non-pesticide methods to flea/tick control, including using flea combs, regular shampooing, increased vaccuming/sweeping, and keeping pets inside, but again, talk to your vet about what is best for your pet.