3 Easy Going Green Tips for Kids

Posted on Feb 17, 2012 in Sustainable Living & Sustainable Lifestyle by Matthew Speer 0 Comments

Going green has become a popular subject in homes and schools across the country. Creating a sustainable earth requires a strong commitment to teaching eco-friendly solutions to our future generations. As a parent I can attest that our children love to learn and the younger you start to instill these values the greater the reward. While younger children may not understand all the benefits of a sustainable living, they will be able to understand how environmentally friendly choices help plants, animals and their family. Consider these 3 tips for helping kids go green and take a few steps forward in creating a sustainable lifestyle.

Going Green Tips for Kids that are Easy and Really Work

To make going green simple and effective we must find easy way to implement solutions that do not require major changes to our daily lives. By keeping it simple we allow ourselves to change gradually over time, taking one step closer to a sustainable living each time. The same rule applies to children, as their routine is important and tied directly to their happiness. Because of this, we recommend starting to teach your children going green tips at an early age, though it is never too late to learn new tricks. Our three tips will aim to cover 3 main categories of a sustainable lifestyle which are energy efficiency, water conservation and green products.

Take the bus: While most school buses are not the cleanest vehicles on the road they do offer one critical advantage and that is efficiency. The average school bus can hold about 36 children, meaning a single school bus is equivalent to taking 36 cars off the road. This reduces air pollution by limiting the amount of emissions produced by burning fossil fuels. It also helps save money; some reports state that the average fuel cost to transport a child in your own car is about $3.68, while a school bus costs only $0.78 per day. That is about $580 in savings each year per student.
Turn of the water while brushing teeth: Teaching your children and even yourself to turn off the water while brushing teeth is a simple, yet very effective method of conserving water. This is one of those habits that I even had to teach myself to break, and is one of the ways we cut our own water bill. This can save up to 8 gallons per day, per person and the tip can be applied to other activities like washing hands and Dad’s shaving. Help your children understand this concept by teaching them that by saving water now, it means always having enough water when we need it later.
Skip the plastics: We have discussed how BPA in plastics can be very toxic and that plastic bags produce large problems for the landfills. Exposing your children to alternatives at a young age will make choosing green products a natural decision, rather than a forced one. A great example is to use a reusable water bottle combined with a reusable bag to carry lunch to school. This will ensure they get a healthy lunch from home, limit BPA exposure and reduce landfill waste at the same time.

Each of these 3 going green tips for kids are simple and easy for any parent to implement. Our children are the future; they should inherit an environment that is better than we started with, not worse. Sustainable living does not have to mean sacrifice, instead is should equate to prosperity and tie back to core values that started at each of our family’s homes.