Green or Nothing

Author: Susannah Marriott
Format: Hardback
EAN: 9781405331128
Buy from: Amazon.co.uk

Birth signals the start of one of life’s most special times, when everything seems possible. You will do anything and take on anyone to protect your baby. If we can yoke this determination to do what’s right for our children to this sense of unbridled power, we will surely be able to protect the future of our planet.

We all know by now the “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra but how do we apply these rules when bringing a new life into the world, after all babies can be the biggest consumers of “throw away” products in any family. Conveniently broken down into the following chapters; ‘Caring for Your Baby’, ‘Feeding Your Baby’, ‘The Green, Clean Baby’, ‘Green Nursery’, ‘Play Green’, and ‘Out and About’, this book provides an impressive range of green solutions covering just about every aspect of a baby’s life that you can think of.

Being new parents ourselves we had already to some extent considered the greener options such as cotton nappies but it has still amazed us how much extra trash our little one produces every week. The biggest culprit we’ve found to be wet wipes and it wasn’t until reading this book that we discovered what a disaster they are, not only for the environment but also for our baby’s health.

The fantastic thing about this book is that not only does it present some great facts and information about the potential negative impact of bringing up a baby in the traditional western excessive consumer culture, but it also importantly provides some very practical alternatives. What we found particularly impressive was that often more than one alternative is presented with these broken down into varying degrees of eco-friendliness, “light green”, “mid green”, and “deep green”. For example we discovered that potential alternatives to our wet wipe dilemma are;

• Light Green – Use eco friendly, unbleached, biodegradable, flushable wet wipes.
• Mid Green – Make our wet wipes using recycled kitchen paper and make a spritzer with chamomile, hemp oil and pasteurised honey (there’s a great recipe for this in the book).
• Deep Green – Use toilet paper marked with the FSC logo (Forest Stewardship Council), throw them in the toilet and then finish the wipe down with a cotton flannel that you can then wash with the cotton nappies.

Despite its small size this is one of those books that is just packed full of really valuable information, and you simply can’t turn a page without thinking to yourself “Oh, I didn’t know that.”, “No way, that’s terrible”, and “Wow, what a great idea, I can do that”. It’s also very easy to find the information on a particular topic and just dip into the book whenever necessary rather than reading from cover to cover.

We also enjoyed the really impressive questionnaire at the beginning of the book which immediately gets you thinking about the choices you’re making on a daily basis with regards to the upbringing of your baby. There’s also a handy resources section at the end of the book which includes an impressive range of websites that you can then explore to find even more information on the topics you’re interested in.

If you’re a new parent or are about to have a baby then this is a book that you need to buy.

Of course with a book on this topic it was important that creating it had as little environmental impact as possible. It’s presented in a very chunky heavy duty recycled cardboard cover (with no dust jacket), and it’s printed on FSC paper with vegetable inks. Along with these we also appreciate the comments from the author and publishers on the back cover of the book; “This book was made with care. Creating this book we recycled, switched off, printed double sided, rode bikes, talked, and asked questions a little bit more”.

So if you’re a new parent, or if you thinking of gift for someone who’s just had or is about to have a baby (and they at least consider themselves to be light green) then this is the book that you need to buy. Just remember when the kids have grown up that you can reuse it by passing it onto another parent.

Buy Green Babycare by Susannah Marriott from Amazon