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photo credit Mike.Hanlon

USA Today has published a special report titled The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools:

These are the places that we send our children to learn. We trust these schools to keep them them safe.

In Delaware, where my daughter attends preschool, there are no regulations on school siting.

In fact, the preschool my boys attended is rated in the top 25% of schools for toxic chemical exposure. How does your school rate?

It makes me ill. Here I am, cleaning with my baking soda and vinegar, scraping pennies together to be able to afford pesticide-free produce, for the sake of keeping my kids chemical free. Out here in my house in the middle of nowhere, where we moved in the hope that leaving the city and its pollution behind would ease my child’s allergies and asthma.

Meanwhile:

Children are more susceptible to contaminants when their bodies are young and developing. To what extent has the damage already been done?

I’m angry and frustrated and I feel like my small efforts are pointless.

Pollution and chemical exposure- it’s everywhere. It’s inescapable. Especially here. I live just outside the chemical capital of the world.

Why has our government neglected to protect our children? The EPA- why have they failed our children? Why the hell do we pay taxes, anyway? Flipping automotive bailouts?

Why is pollution not taken more seriously?

What can I do?

The fact is, this article is not entirely shocking. On some level I already knew all this.

Now that my fears have been confirmed, what will I do?
What can we, as parents, as human beings, as citizens of a nation, do?

Silence is acceptance and this is unacceptable.

So, we get noisy. We write letters and we make phonecalls. We make our voices heard, join those voices together, create a cacophony until something gets done to quiet the unrelenting din.

The Center for Health, Environment and Justice has an action page set up to help us get started. Talk to other parents and get them involved. Write your newspaper, your school board, your Congressman, the damn EPA.

Our children are immediately at risk. But ultimately, pollution and chemical exposure is a problem that affects us all.

We have to do something.

Yaktrax Walker, $19.95

I’ve purchased Yaktrax in years past for my husband, my in-laws, my mailman and myself. They are AWESOME for walking on ice; they stretch right over your boots and the metal “bites” into the ice for traction. I found them especially useful in the years where I was carrying around a sleeping baby!

Bear Claw Scoops, $14.95

I don’t think I’ve kept it secret that I hate the yearly leaf gathering…
These would make leafwork much faster and much more fun.
I am thinking that they could also be used for quickly piling up snow for forts and snowmen!

Yaktrax and Bear Claws can be found at Plow and Hearth®.

Mason Bee House, $14.95

I had two tomato plants that grew like crazy, flowered, and then never bore fruit because they were never properly pollinated. Major disappointment.

As honeybee populations mysteriously decline, we can do our part to support pollinator populations by preparing our yards for them. And, we can keep these beneficial pollinators in our yards where they can help out our fruit and vegetable garden, by providing desirable shelter.

Mason bees are native, non-stinging bees that can pollinate up to 20 times as many blooms as a honeybee.

I think this bamboo beehouse is really pretty.

Roosting Pocket Village, $14.95

Another perennial favorite gift to give. These are so cute, and woven from natural materials. The house wrens like to nest in them, and there is quite seriously nothing so enjoyable as a family of wrens returning year after year. Their song means that spring has arrived.

These should be hung outside a window so you can hear the singing and watch the babies learn to fly!

Motion Activated Night Light, $19.95

This would be a thoughtful gift for a new or expecting parent, to aid in those middle-of-the-night feedings and diaper changes.

Or, it could be hung on a young child’s doorknob for when they have to make the midnight trek to the bathroom (is there anything worse than having to snap on the bathroom light when you’re half-asleep?)

Mason Bee Village, Roosting Pocket Village, and Nightlight available at Gardener’s Supply Company.

You can save 10% off any order over $25 at Gardener’s Supply Company by clicking through the button on the sidebar.