Six Great Ways to Go Green

Help Your Daycare or School Go Green

A few easy green practices and policies to consider:

• Reduce how much packaging you purchase and pitch. Start with individual plastic water bottles, says Wendy Gordon of the Green Guide Institute, publishers of thegreenguide.com. Write your kid's name on a reusable cup, and encourage him to use it regularly and take responsibility for it.
• Organize an all-school clothing and toy swap. Or sell the items and use the proceeds to adopt an animal through programs offered by Defenders of Wildlife (defenders.org) -- thereby expanding the "student body" to include an Indian elephant or an African gorilla. At home, "engage your kids in the process of trying to decide how to get rid of things," says Christopher Gavigan, a father of one and the author of Healthy Child Healthy World (Dutton). "It will help them realize that acquiring new stuff eventually leads to decisions about how to reuse or repurpose it when it's no longer useful to you."
• Reuse packaging for art projects. Tissue boxes can become building blocks; lidded yogurt containers are useful receptacles for homemade play dough.