15th October 2009

It’s Difficult to Be Green as a New Mom

When I started this website/blog, it was to focus on environmental awareness and global warming/climate change.  I’ve since travelled to Antarctica so I could see climate change first-hand.  I journeyed with others who were interested in climate change, along with some who just wanted another feather in their cap for having seen all the continents before they died.   I was shocked by what I observed in Antarctica.

I came back and went to see Al Gore a year ago, while pregnant,  on climate change initiatives.  I’ve blogged about many things that were green.  I gasped as I observed coffee-goers at Starbucks and Panera throw out plastic cups.  I learned about electric and hybrid cars.  I’ve participated in some green events.  I had passion for the environment and how to effect change in our future.  And then I had a baby, heh heh.

So,  wonder how much green I have in my life with a baby?

Today (it’s almost over, but this was the first chance I had to blog tonight) was Blog Action Day - Climate Change

To be entirely green with a newborn, I’d nurse all the time instead of twice a day, recycle and wash those super poopy diapers, never use plastic, and if I dared to use plastic, I’d recycle every single time, and of course, I’d try to re-use those glass bottles for something.  But the fact is, within a few weeks of total exhaustion beyond belief that only mothers can understand, you begin to slip as a green mom.  I never envisioned this would be my cupboard.

Baby Plastic Food Containers
My cupboard of baby food, no longer the green extremist

More will be posted to this but to meet the deadline of 11:59 p.m. 11/15/09 Blog Action Day, I’m publishing a half-complete blog.

My cupboard wouldn’t be filled with this type of ingredient at all - tiny single-use plastic containers that are the epitome of wastefulness and consumerism.  But the fact is, as a working mom, business owner, I barely have time to do a load of laundry, much less get all the cleaning done in the kitchen.  I steamed spinach tonight for Melina.  By the time it was ready, Melina was done with her chicken and applesauce and about ready to catapult out of her high-chair.  I have the baby food mill that my dear friend Alicia got for us. I’ve used it lovingly about ten times, if that, in nearly a year.  It’s simply easier and faster to buy those horrible plastic containers.

The first few months I stacked up the plastic recycling until it was overflowing so many places I’d trip over a bag waiting to go to the recycle facility down the road.  I admit, I stopped recycling entirely for a few months after Melina was born, despite the mass quantities of plastic consumption.  But I just couldn’t do it all as a new mom.

Now, I’m back to recycling and have been for a while.  I admit, I still occasionally fudge.  But, I do try to be green.  If I could affect change on a grander level, I’d just get Starbucks and Panera to recycle on site, in every store they have throughout the United States.

In the meantime, this is my recycling, and I’m determined to take it in tomorrow, or maybe Saturday, or maybe I’ll get that done Sunday.  I’m tired, are  you?


My Whole Foods bag of recycling - and way too many plastic containers

Leave a Reply

To reply to this article, please enter your name and write your comment in the textbox below. Some HTML tags are allowed, but others will be stripped if you enter them in your comments.

You must be logged in to post a comment.

More from Laura Thieme: