by Sarah Lane

It is ironic, or perhaps more accurately just plain wrong, that the movements to green up our workplaces and schools are so far ahead of the efforts to make day cares eco-friendly. Not to say that no one is doing anything about it. But the large-scale successful national eco-school programs such as the Green Schools Initiative, the Earth Day Network’s Green Schools Project, and the National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools program and international efforts like Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots and the Green Schools Alliance focus on elementary and high schools, and their work far surpasses the reach of the burgeoning work of eco-friendly day care advocates. Yet it is the youngest among us who are most susceptible to toxins, poor air quality, and inappropriate messages about the planet and how to care for it.

What Is a Green Day Care?

• A green or eco-day care reduces or eliminates exposure to toxins such as those found in cleaning products, certain toys, art supplies, and food and drink containers.
• It eliminates pesticides.
• It ensures air quality by restricting car idling at pickup and dropoff and by eliminating airborne toxins from furniture, carpeting, and heating and cooling systems. Usually it enforces a no shoes inside policy to help with air quality.
• It models good earth citizen behaviors for young impressionable tots by composting leftover food, reusing and recycling whenever possible, and involving children in gardening projects.
• It ensures the absence of mercury, lead, and radon from facilities.

Why Green Day Care?

In a green day care, the youngest and most susceptible among us are protected from health dangers. Just as important, they are provided with a solid foundation for growing into responsible citizens who will face and tackle the environmental problems confronting our problem. Furthermore, when they see the adults around them modeling this behavior, children are reassured that the adults around them are responding appropriately.

Where to Turn?

The most comprehensive and wide reaching organization for certifying green day cares is the Oregon Environmental Council’s Eco-Healthy Child Care project. The EHCC provides applicants with a checklist and guidance for achieving an eco status. Once the provisions on the guidelines have been met, a day care earns its certification and is added to the database maintained by the OEC to help parents find green day cares in their areas.

So far, the OEC has certified nearly 1500 day cares across the country. But this is just a tiny fraction (0.4 percent) of the 280,000 regulated home day cares and likely more than 70,000 licensed child care centers (according to the 2000 House Ways and means Green Book Child Care). You can help by approaching your day care provider and urging them to contact the OEC about obtaining certification.

© 2010 ProgressiveKid

Image by edenpictures, 2009. Creative Commons license.

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