|
|
The Regional Environmental Reconstruction Programme for South Eastern EuropeREReP Record |
| Children are typically considered to be gifts, full of innocence and primed to learn, grow and become a new generation that is better able to manage the problems we have created in this world. Unfortunately, rather than making the world a better place environmentally, child rearing often means placing added burdens on the planet. A civil society initiative in Croatia has worked to lessen some of this impact. Two NGOs whose names mean “stork,” Storklja from Slovenia and Roda from Croatia, have worked to unite parents and future parents to do the best for their children by, among other things, supporting breastfeeding, natural birth, and attachment parenting. When one considers the impacts of children on the environment, diapers are often the first thing to come to mind. Infants do, after all, go through approximately 3,000 of them per year. Life-cycle analyses comparing cloth and disposable diapers have reached different conclusions, as both have their advantages and disadvantages. Disposable diapers offer parents greater convenience but at a substantial cost in natural resources: paper and petroleum-based chemicals go into their manufacturing and they end up in landfills after their use. Cloth diapers may be more healthful as they expose the infant to fewer chemicals, but lots of water and detergents are used to wash them. One of the joint efforts of the two NGOs promotes the
environmentally conscientious use of cloth diapers, including washing
with phosphate-free detergent. The activists have spread their knowledge
through newspapers and TV interviews, and have spoken directly with parents
and healthcare professionals in various forums. An educational film was
created for parents. Their work has focused on showing people how easy
modern cloth diapers are to use and care for, how beneficial they are
to the baby and the planet, and how to wash them using less electricity
and detergents. The work of the two NGOs was supported with a grant provided
by the REC through the Danube Regional Project grants programme funded
by the United Nations Development Programme-Global Environment Facility
(UNDP-GEF). |
|
|
    
|
|||
|
