How is your Green Your Routine Challenge coming along?
We are well on our way to being Green. With the expertise of litterless lunches under our belts and to journey into green cleaners well on its way, we not can turn our focus onto green transportation.
How do you get to work, the store, your kids to school and their activities? Is there one of those destinations that you could turn into a new green challenge? Maybe walk to school? Bike to an activity? Lets get out of our cars at least a little bit more and get more exercise and help the environment with our new green transportation.
Our goals are to have our middle one walk to and from school because it is within a block away and we certainly do not need to use the car for that. We can bike to Sparks meetings since they are so close as well. Those are certainly two manageable goals in our house for greening our routine. What can you challenge yourself to?
Getting to school has an enormous impact on our environment as well as our health. With an estimated 1.6 million children in Canada (26% per cent of children) considered overweight or obese, it’s a wonder more parents don’t look at making healthy transporta0on op0ons a part of their daily lives. Here’s a few ways to work health, cost and environmentally friendly op0ons into your geqng to school routine:
Start a ‘Walking School Bus’
If your children’s schools are close enough to walk to, leave the car in the garage. Walking is the greenest way to travel and does the least damage to the environment. Find ways to either walk with, or ensure your children join forces with other families who travel the same path to school. This arrangement can give you adult company to chat with, or you can split the task of walking with the children to school. If enough children in your area head in the same direc0on to school, consider setting up a walking bus in which the children all walk together with a parent at the front as the “driver” and another parent at the back for safety.
Make the investment in two and four wheeled methods of transportation like a bike, new scooter, or skateboard to make the trip to school fun and fit.
Create a Carpool
Eco‐friendly carpools are best done with a consistent group of committed parents who organize a set number of pickups and drop offs. Ideally, the families work together to organize the largest number of children that can safely be transported in the smallest car. Carpools are easiest to manage if they involve just two or three families. Find out which days work best (or worst) for the carpool drivers, create a schedule that works for everyone and a system for notifying other members of the pool if someone isn’t riding on a particular day. For safety reasons, it’s essential that everyone involved in the carpool have full contact information for all the children’s parents, along with the children’s addresses, allergy notes, and any important health information.
