Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, do you do it. I don’t know about you but the amount of waste we produce as a family is ridiculous. We can no longer fill the earth with our rubbish, waste that will take 1000s of years to biodegrade and damage our environment beyond repair.

What can we do to help? Recycle! This has been made easy for householders in our city. Belfast City Council provide a blue bin for recyclables although it would be good if like the local curbside collection box system that runs in some areas it took glass as well! They also have majorly revamped their recycling centers which are now drive through (although I think we should really cycle with a trailer to carry recyclables but we can’t do everything I suppose), on the plus side they recycle almost anything. They have also improved their bulky items collection service which is efficient and you aren’t left waiting 3 weeks for a date. We distribute all waste clothing, toys and household items if they are in good condition to the second hand shops, its helps you achieve your sustainable goals and generate some cash for charity. My little boy loves getting money from his money box and heading down the street to buy books in the secondhand shops

We do try and use public transport where possible. Kids love travelling on the bus and train and who would want the stress of driving, especially trying to find and pay for parking in the city centre when you can get a city bus day ticket for £2.50 -£3.50 or a day trip with one of Translink’s offers. The bus is a convenient travel to work and most times is pretty efficient. We all have bikes and my 10 month old absolutely loves sitting in his bike seat on his daddy’s bike while daddy takes him for a bike ride to feed the ducks.

Families can strive to live sustainably and the point is every small effort we make helps to achieve this on a bigger scale. We can still have the conveniences that the modern age has provided us with as long as we do so sensibly. Green parenting or Healthy parenting is achievable by anyone, you don’t have to be living the “good life” in the middle of the country in order to live sustainably or at least I hope you don’t!

What do you recycle and how? Have you any interesting stories on the type of things that you have managed to recycle and what did they get made into?

Chemicals in our food, I can’t believe it. We used to eat far too much processed food; by processed I mean anything that needs endless amounts of chemical flavorings, colorings and sweeteners to make it appealing to the palate. Honestly it is frightening, what is in our food, if you take the time to read the label.

There has been endless media coverage on the dangers of artificial additives to children’s health linking them to ADD and hyperactivity disorder, autistic spectrum and many others disorders, allergies and diseases. There is no doubt in my mind from watching my son that additives affect behavior, the sweetener aspartame makes him hyper and he screams hysterically. I noticed the effect that artificial additives were having on my kid’s behavior and decided to remove them completely from our diet. I saw immediate benefits.

It’s easy to remove artificial additives from the family’s diet but it takes practice when shopping and many weeks reading labels to gage the brands that are safe. Even foods marketed directly for children are a problem; it is unbelievable that in our drive to give our children sugar free, everything we have replaced it with deadly chemicals with unknown side effects. Eating healthily becomes second nature but shopping healthily is a skill especially when the shelves of the supermarkets are stacked with processed food and even not so processed that has hidden chemicals to make it more appealing to the eye or to lengthen its shelf life. Many countries have seen fit to ban numerous artificial additives and I think in the future this list is going to get longer but my children don’t have time to wait so it’s up to me as a parent to adapt their diet now.

Do your kids have an adverse reaction to artificial additives in their food, tell us the type or reaction they have and which artificial additive you think is to blame?

Our food, where does it come from? The warehouse at the back of the Food chain store? Local food, sometimes it can be very hard to find so don’t feel bad.

I watched a program recently about an Irish chef who was on a quest for a Michelin star; he maintained he had the best salad from a farm importing it from England and that the same quality could not be sourced in Ireland. Import, export our economy relies upon it but do we have to import something that can be grown well in Ireland. Now really, surely the restaurants could work with the growers to produce the quality they require (my little boy is currently growing lettuce in his mini garden glasshouse, I wonder if his will be up to stratch!).

A walk through any of the main supermarkets or for that matter some local vegetable shops at this time of year will tell where the food comes from and how much chemical must be sprayed onto to ripen it and keep it from going off over the thousands of miles it travels to the shelf. Now we can eat more seasonally, we can buy locally produced produce in supermarkets and especially farmers markets. A trip once a week (which we must make more of an effort to do) to St Georges markets in Belfast on a Friday or Saturday and there is plenty opportunity to buy fresh fish, meat, fruit and veg, all sourced locally and of high quality.

Do you source your food locally; have you got a good local organic food store or farmers market? Tell you about it?

In my experience it isn’t easy to run a sustainable household or at least it’s not easy for us, we all waste energy, water (my kids love running water, taps, toilet flush anything!), use the car too much and buy food that has travelled thousands of miles, when we could eat fruit and vegetables that are produced near home and eat it seasonally. But the point is… every little thing we do helps. So you might not be able to live without every electrical gadget in your home and that is fine, we can just make sure we don’t leave everything on standby that one thing won’t save the world on its own but if everyone had that rule then we really would have a good start. There are loads of ways you can become more sustainable but today I am going to talk about nappies, oh the joys of motherhood!

Disposable Nappies, was there ever any other type? oh Yes that’s right some of you remember the buckets of Napisan soaking soiled terry nappies before they had to be boil washed. My goodness the work involved, unbelievable. The modern mother doesn’t have time for that (does she?), never mind the fact that it would turn the stomach of many. Disposable nappies were God sent (we thought!), clean, happy babies, less work and no mess BUT what about the astronomical amounts of non biodegradable waste being created, the chemicals in the nappy and the danger the chemical pose to our babies never mind the cost, really not as good as we thought.

So what about trying the “terrys” again, have we the time? Hmm well I tried them with Ryan, not the “terrys” but the more modern equivalent – no pins, shaped like a nappy – and the blooming bottoms nappy laundry service (adding to my never-ending pile of clothes laundry pile at home wasn’t an option). The nappies themselves surpass any of the disposables, more soak-age, comfortable and contented baby. The laundry service was excellent, providing a nappy bin, with waterproof bag which was collected weekly and a fresh bag of clean dry nappies left at the door. I couldn’t find any faults with either the nappies or the laundry service.

This time round, I had to knuckle down and do “wash at home” as due to lack of funding from local authorities the laundry service is no longer running. I find washing at home fine and baby is happy. For those of you that don’t fancy having a bag of stinking nappies to wash with a biodegradable nappy sanitizer there are lots of biodegradable disposable nappies on the market which weren’t available generally 4 years ago. So it’s worth a try for everybody and I am sure babies will be happier to be chemical and be less likely to suffer from nappy rash (bar when they are teething of course).

Have you tried reusable nappies, have you found a biodegradable nappy that you think works best? Tell us story?

What is it? Certainly not growing your children under a cabbage at the bottom of the garden or living in a hole in the hillside with no electric or running water (I do admit this may be attractive to some, although I personally prefer a fully insulated house with four walls whether that be wood, straw or brick). Neither is it depriving your children of every modern convenience and reverting to the lifestyle of 200 yrs past. There were reasons for modern advances, they improved our health, education, our standards of living improved but has it gone too far? Yes. Many of us currently live un-sustainably, wasting energy, water, creating mass amounts of non recyclable waste which ends up in landfill, polluting the earth that should provide with all we need, filling our food full of chemicals, that will undoubtedly do us and especially our children detrimental harm, the list is endless.

Now I don’t like the term “Green Parenting” or even “Earth Mother”, “Eco-parent” or any of those terms because really all they do is make it sound as if we are part of a special club that needs special qualifications, oftentimes putting the suburban mother off the idea of trying to become more sustainable because they think its only attainable for a few. Green parenting is nothing more than healthy parenting, trying to raise your children well, ensuring they have a healthy environment and that it stays safe for their future and their children’s future.

Do you believe that your family can become “greener”, is it achievable or is it just too hard in the fast paced world that you live in today?