Lets Make a Healthier World for Our Children

I wrote a post back in December about some trepidation my husband and I are having about navigating the kindergarten choices for our oldest daughter.

Guest Article by Wendy Gabriel

We’re conflicted about where to send her to school.  Should she go to public school, private school or be home-schooled?  We worry about the kind of education she will receive. We wonder about the kind of learning situation that would best suit her personality. Like every other parent we want her to be in a safe, nurturing learning environment.

During our many discussions on the subject, not once did we discuss the health of the physical building that she would inhabiting for many hours of her day, until I read a disturbing article in USA Today.

The USA Today piece  was an eye-opening eight-month examination on industrial pollution across the nation and the impact it has on the air outside of schools.

The article begins with a school in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Three years ago the school shut down due to dangerously high levels of chemicals in air samples collected just outside of the school building.  The source of the chemicals?  The plastics plant located across the street. The air quality was so bad the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency concluded the risk of getting cancer was 50 times higher than what was considered acceptable by the state.

Even more stunning, USA Today discovered “the air outside 435 other schools – from Maine to California – appears to be even worse, and the threats to the health of students at those locations may be even greater.”

Then, in April of this year, The Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ)  sent a press release, “Autism Tied to Schools Built Near Superfund Sites – Study Finds New Environmental Factor In Autism Diagnosis.” The study conducted by researchers at the University of Northern Iowa shows “drastically increased rates of Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in children attending schools within a 10 or 20 mile radius of a superfund site compared to those who do not attend school near toxic waste sites. This study, in a growing body of evidence, is a call to action for state and federal decision makers to pass safe school siting policies that protect our nation’s children from toxic chemical exposures.”

Note: A superfund site might sound super fun but it’s an area that has been used to dump toxic waste and that has been marked by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a designated clean up area.

These articles coupled with a guest post here at Twilight Earth from Janelle Sorensen, Healthy Child Health World which reminded parents to do a smell test when visiting your child’s school because “for many air quality issues, your nose knows.” She goes on to say that the “EPA estimates that at least half of our nation’s 120,000 schools have problems.”

As parents and human beings, we need to be concerned with the quality of air that our children are breathing outdoors and indoors and the use of toxic chemicals and pesticide in schools and anywhere else our children are spending time. Children’s little bodies are not able to process and expel toxins the way adult bodies do. It is our job to protect the little bodies in our care.

Now for some good news.

According to NPR.org the US House of Representatives on Thursday, May 14, 2009 passed a “multiyear school construction bill with the ambitious goals of producing hundreds of thousands of jobs, reducing energy consumption and creating healthier, cleaner environments for the nation’s schoolchildren.” The 21^st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act would provide states with money so school districts could “build, modernize and repair facilities to make them healthier, safer and more energy-efficient.”

It’s a start. Now something you can do.

CHEJ has a wonderful ongoing Childproofing Our Communities Campaign . Visit their website and discover how CHEJ works to protect children from exposure to environmental health hazards where they live, learn, play and pray. They help communities create safer and healthier environments for children through innovative trainings, programs and personal assistance.

Sign up. Let your voice be heard in your own community. We can be the change.

As a green living freelance writer based in Minneapolis, Wendy’s work has been published by the Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Reuters and Fox News. Her popular blog, My Green Side, offers simple tips for green living.

She says “I created My Green Side as a way to remind myself, while hoping to educate others, on how to live thoughtfully and responsibly for our children, ourselves and our planet.

I’m a wife to an amazing man and a mother of two awesome little girls. Everything I do is seen through this lens.  My passion for sustainability is a gift from my parents who were green long before it was cool to be green.

The journey I’m on has opened my eyes to many simple things we can do to make a big difference in the world around us and in our own homes.

If we don’t try harder to live better, we will all languish in a pool of empty plastic bottles.”

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3. World’s Biggest Garbage Dump? The Ocean