Children's birthdays

The world of school has brought us into the world of children's birthday parties.

How do we encourage our daughter to celebrate her friends without having to buy more and more stuff? How do we allow her to have her own birthday celebration without expecting mounds of loot as the main event?

Two years ago I wrote about celebrating birthdays when our children turned one and four. At the time, Eva's friends were still from families that we knew, who understand a little of our values around consumption and waste. Now she has many friends whose families we know only to wave to at school pick-up, and I feared we were opening ourselves to a pink plastic mountain of gifts.

Last year our birthday invitations asked people not to bring gifts, explaining that we were trying to help our children learn to value time with friends without receiving any material items. We took blankets, boxes, ropes, pegs, cushions etc to a local park and had a cubby-making afternoon and picnic.

(Of course if talking about Eva's 5th birthday we have to make mention of Grandad's amazing excavator birthday cake. Retired engineers...)

Saying 'no gifts' made last year's guests a bit uncomfortable, although they respected the request. One mum asked me a bit nervously if it was OK if her daughter made a card to give, which told me I'd come across a bit too hard-line about the gifts thing. 

So this year we opted instead to say:

We are trying to reduce our Global footprint and to help our children to ‘consume’ less, and encourage you to consider recycled, home-made or second-hand gifts, or no gift at all.

I was quite unsure about putting this on the invitations, as I did not know most of the families receiving them. However, the response was very positive. One parent thanked me for getting her thinking, and for freeing her up from needing to go and buy something. Another, who had responded by baking biscuits with her daughter as a home-made gift, thanked me for giving her a lovely activity to share with her daughter. Two families had put their heads together and coordinated gifts, so that one gave Eva some pre-loved jewellery and the other a second-hand jewellery box to keep it in.

The unexpected side effect was that there was hardly any packaging. Second hand items have already shed their useless plastic coatings! Although we had said nothing about gift wrapping, nearly everyone either presented gifts in a reusable bag, or with home-made paper. I can only assume they caught the 'vibe' and applied it to their choices for wrapping also. We continue to wrap our own gifts at home in fabric and ribbons, which we use over and over, or use hand-decorated paper (usually recycled, with random old printouts on the inside).

The actual events were mostly free play, without organised party games (which almost always involve buying prizes to distribute). Kids took home a slice of cake but no party bags. We had encouraged Eva to invite a small enough group of school friends so that she could actually enjoy her guests, and this went very well. There was much leaping on the trampoline. We split celebrations up into a number of smaller gatherings, for friends from different parts of our lives, rather than one big gathering. My experience is that bigger gatherings tend towards emphasising consumption rather than quality time, although I'm sure there are exceptions to that. As noted when I wrote about birthdays previously, we avoided single-use items like themed napkins, single-use decorations or disposable plates.

Trail of evidence suggests someone finished off ALL the fairy bread.

When Eva has been invited to other birthday parties I have gone with the social obligation of sending a gift. I try to ensure I don't give any gifts I wouldn't want to receive, applying my own values to gift selection, such as: encouraging open-ended play; reducing consumption; avoiding plastics; reducing packaging. Several times this has been a kids recipe book. Another time we sent a pre-loved game (in good condition). Eva packaged up her dressing gown as birthday gift for her best friend, because she knew he really liked it.

Best friend arrives for Eva's birthday. Excitement levels are high.

Initial Time: Zero time in requesting low-impact gifts; a little time each birthday to think through gifts and other aspects.

Initial Cost: Zero. We save money by keeping birthday stuff small.

However, saving money is not the main intent and aiming to save money on kids birthdays can lead to less sustainable choices: For example, setting a $5 or $10 gift limit (for yourself, or for others coming to your party) is likely to increase the amount of cheap plastic you give (or receive). And it is hard to see how good quality gifts costing $5 could have been produced in ways that ensure everyone in the supply chain received appropriate pay and conditions for their part in the gift getting to us. For this reason I argued for our kindy 'gift from Santa' to the kids last year to not set a cost limit, but rather to ensure the kids were all given books. Its also a reason we didn't do 'party bags' for kids to take home - because they end up full of cheap trinkets that go almost straight into the bin (or just mounds of sugar).

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Its not so much a time or cost commitment, but by being just a little different we mark ourselves into the future with these school families, putting ourselves out there as 'that family'. I hope in a good way, but its impossible to be sure.

Impact: The greatest impact was probably the conversations we started. We also continue to hope that we are modelling for our children and their friends less consumption-oriented ways to live.

I can't find any data on how much waste is generated by birthday parties, or how many birthday presents get thrown in the bin. Australians generate around 44 million tonnes of rubbish each year (almost certainly much more, as these statistics are nine years old, and the amount had doubled in the ten years before that). Even at the 2006 figures, that is about 2 million tonnes of rubbish for each of us. Every single Australian. A little under one third of the total waste is household rubbish - such as birthday party debris and broken plastic toys.

Happy Birthday lovely girl. Our favourite six-year-old.

Links: If you found this helpful, you may also be interested in my past posts about Christmas: practical ideas; changing the questions; giving things away; Baking Day.

Some other people sharing ideas for sustainable kids birthday parties: one two three

A bit of a rant about how obscene the children's birthday party circuit can be.

If you are a Melbourne person, here's a firm that do zero-waste kids' birthday parties with Trash Puppet Making Workshops.

An idea for gifts: online donation organisation that sends half the money to a chosen charity and the other half to your child, for them to buy one meaningful gift. (Another blog I read described a Canadian tradition of having two donation jars at a party instead of gifts - a gold coin in one, going to a charity; a gold coin in the other, going to the child)

Getting to school without getting in the car

Our Big Girl started full-time school this year (Pre-Primary). 

Best friends on the bus on the first day of school, back in February

The school is 1.6km from our house - exactly one mile. There is a very busy road to cross. However, we have committed to getting her there without getting in the car. 

Most days we take the bus. There is no 'school bus' (they are not common in Australian cities) but a public bus route picks up about a block away and drops off at the school gate.

Other days we walk, ride or scooter. We are more than halfway through the year, and we have driven less then ten times - almost all when the car was on its way somewhere else and included a school drop-off or pick-up in the same journey.

Initial Time: Walking with Eva takes about 20 minutes, plus about ten minutes for an adult to walk home again. The bus only takes five minutes of actual bus time, but by the time we walk to the stop and wait, it is a 15 minute journey all together to get to school (generally Tyson or I then walk rather than bus our way home again). After school, the bus includes a wait, and is almost always late on top of that, meaning getting home at least half an hour after school lets out, often longer. If both Eva and parent scooter or ride, its less than a ten minute trip each way, including time for tying up the bike. If Eva rides and her adult walks, its more like 15 minutes. 

Driving takes about 5 minutes, so all these options add time.

Initial Cost: Riding, walking and scootering are free (Eva's bike was a hand-me-down gift; her scooter we found on bulk rubbish and Tyson fixed it up). The bus costs 60c each way for Eva and between 60c or $2.25 for Tyson and I (depending on whether our concession is current, and whether we bus home again or walk back). If we caught the bus each way each day that could be between $12 and $28.50, but as we always mix it up with some walking/riding/scootering, and also share accompanying children on the bus with another family, in practice its more like $6 a week.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: Over the course of a year, I estimate we are spending about $240 on bus fares getting to and from school. Best case scenario we add about 1 hour a week to our travel times; worst case (lots of slow walking or waiting for late buses) we add up to 5 hours. However, this time has its own value (see 'impact'), so is not 'wasted' time in the week.

Impact: 

If we drove to and from school every day, this would be approximately 32km of driving per week. Given the stop-start nature of the trip, including a set of traffic lights that often takes a couple of cycles to get through at peak hour, the car doesn't run as efficiently for this sort of trip as is it can at optimum. Driving every trip would use around 2.72L of fuel per week - approximately $3.80 worth, generating around 7.4kg of CO2. (By comparison, this tool suggests that taking the bus would add about 3kg of CO2 to our carbon footprint, but that's a very rough estimate with many variables). In a year, allowing for some carbon footprint when we take the bus, we are saving around 270kg of CO2 each year by not driving to school.

Studies have shown that the rates of Australian school children in suburban areas using 'active transportation' (ie human-powered) to get to school have declined by around 40% since the early 1970s. In 2003, around 65% of primary and 40% of secondary school students in a Sydney study were driven to and from school, up from approximately 21% and 10% in 1971. Walking and bus-riding both declined. (Cycling was such a small number it didn't figure in the statistics, possibly because the area studied was quite hilly, However, other studies show the number of children riding bikes at all, let alone to school, is declining). If we were to postulate that 50% of Australia's approximately 3.7 million school students are driven to school every day, and conservatively estimate round trips of 1km at each end of the day for these students, that adds up to 74 million kilometres each week being driven to get children to and from school. That's over 1.3 million kg (1,300 tonnes) of CO2 being pumped into our air every week just getting Australian kids to school (much more, actually, as this doesn't allow for longer distances travelled to country schools, but I accept that in regional areas there are fewer alternate options). Taking our car off the road is a small contribution to reducing that, but hopefully we can inspire a few others to join us too. 

Not driving also addresses general traffic congestion. Everyone knows how much easier it is to get around the city when its school holidays, because there are far fewer cars on the roads. When congestion in the school carpark was a problem earlier this year, the school staggered the times of classes ending their day but never once suggested that parents could consider not driving to address the carpark problem! We can do better than that, surely?

Its not just about getting our car off the road, though - its also about getting us active. I prefer to walk or ride rather than bus because the exercise at each end of the school day is good for both me and Eva. She is a pretty active, physical person - it helps her school day a lot if she has burned off a bit of steam before arriving in the morning; it helps our afternoon tempers a great deal if she has one mile of exercise to stretch herself out after being cooped up all day, especially when wet weather has kept them off the playground. Of course, exercise is good for our general health as well!

Although I err away from the bus when I can, Eva loves it, especially as her best friend is mostly on the bus too, and they sit with admirable self assurance amidst the teenagers from our local high school who also use that bus. The after-school time playing freely on the vacant lot beside the bus stop waiting for the always-late bus is a highlight of her day (less so of mine).

There is also much intangible value in teaching our children that they can be self-sufficient. They can transport themselves to school (with adult supervision at this age, but eventually alone or with friends). In a culture that breeds dependence and, in doing so, de-skills children, this is very important. We are also teaching by example that they don't need to have a car to get everywhere, which will hopefully shape their implicit sense of 'normal' into adulthood.

Links:


Key 2012 Heart Foundation report into 'Active Travel to School' in Australia, which everyone else quotes in their articles.

Environmental Benefits of Walking (Diabetes Australia)

2011 article at The Conversation about decline in Australian children riding to school, what is causing it, why its a bad thing and what can be done to reverse the pattern.

Bicycle Network's Ride2School program

Results hot off the press for the National Cycling Participation Survey 2015 (released last week)

Cycling tips for school drop-off

Australian Bureau of Statistics article (2013) on Australian car ownership trends and implications. Gosh I love the ABS. Such brilliant, ongoing data collection and analysis.

International Walk To School (yep, that's a thing)

Walking School Bus program in Victoria and more generally

Various SA Education Department fact sheets on safe travel to school, including everything from catching a train to knowing the road markings as a pedestrian.

Buy local for back-to-school supplies

Recently we went to visit Eva's school for next year and were given our 'booklist' for her first full-time school year ('Pre-Primary', in our system). We have committed to buying our school supplies locally, beginning with this list, and to ordering only what we actually need.

A 'booklist', for the uninitiated, is a list of stationery items that Eva is expected to bring with her on the first day of school, and does not actually include books. It is written with the sort of language you might find on a shopping docket (eg "Pencil Clrd Faber Castell Junior Tri') and the one we received added up to around $90. 

It also carried the company branding 'OfficeMax' and instructions for how to go to this company's website, enter the school name and password, click about three buttons (including credit card details) and have the whole list delivered to your door for a mere $8.95 postage (earlybird) or $18.95 (normal people who don't think about this until after Christmas).  

OfficeMax is an American-owned multinational corporation. Last year there were protests in South Australia when the company was awarded the contract to supply that State's education department's stationery needs, ousting a local cooperative of newsagents that had been supplying for 40 years, with an estimated 30% job loss within the cooperative as a result. 

 

We also have a fantastic local newsagent, McGhees, owned and run by local people. It might appear smaller than, say, an OfficeWorks store, but McGhees has a much wider range of products: because there is no corporate imperative to chuck away things no longer trendy, and shelves can carry one or two copies of ten or twenty different options, rather than fifty identical copies of the one or two items currently in favour.

Initial Time: Eva and I have started going for regular bike rides together, and this newsagent is a perfect distance and difficulty ride for her at present, so we incorporated our visit into a ride. It took me about five minutes talking to the assistant to give her a copy of our list (having crossed off the items we already have at home) and leave our details. They will call us when the order arrives and we will return to pick it up. If it was not part of our bike ride, the whole exercise may have meant half an hour (two fifteen minute trips) to arrange. But the whole point of buying local is that it is, well, local, so it is likely to be on your way to somewhere else rather than a special trip.

We also placed the order for another family attending the same pre-primary with whom we share buy-local values, so that family's time commitment was zero.

If you happen to live in the same area as us, McGhees has copies of the booklists for all local schools, so you don't even need to remember to take yours with you, and could place an order over the phone (this probably applies to your local newsagent wherever you are).

Initial Cost: McGhees did not have pricing yet for next year, but assured me they generally come close to OfficeMax's quoted prices. Plus there is the cost saving on delivery charges. 

Selecting only what we don't already have saved us about $10. The list might be hard to interpret, but its worth checking: do you really need another library bag? Another pencil case? Eraser? Ruler? Calculator? Lots of stationery items last a lot longer than one school year.

Ongoing time or cost commitment: We have committed to this for the duration of our school parent years: Half an hour a year for the next sixteen years. Eight hours between now and 2030. I reckon we can wear it, even if it blows out to (gasp) double that.

In future years, when I know more parents at the school, I hope to be able to place orders on behalf of a greater number of families, which may involve a little time organising a small collective effort.

Impact: Mega corporations are squeezing out local businesses everywhere. I recently read a fantastic article in The Monthly about the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths in Australia, which covers most areas of basic shopping, including stationery, and is squeezing both producers/suppliers and the small-business competition. An estimated 40% of all Australian retail spending goes to businesses owned by either Woolworths or Wesfarmers (Coles). With stationery, in addition to items available at actual Coles and Woolworths stores, it helps to remember that OfficeWorks, Target, K-Mart and Big W are also owned by the same two companies. Add to that the incredible dominance of foreign-owned OfficeMax, with its branded school-supplies lists, and it is amazing any local newsagents survive. Especially as sales of actual newspapers, the former mainstay of newsagents' trade, are dropping everywhere.

Back-to-school supplies are one of the most important sources of income for newsagents and other stationery suppliers. If we all choose the easy-click option of the 'chosen' supplier our school gives us, these wonderful local stores are in danger of being unviable.

As I described when I wrote about supporting local toy and book stores, buying local has huge social and economic benefits for our community. I happen to know that the proprietors are supporters of the drop-in centre up the road from them, which feeds and cares for the poor in our neighbourhood. The photos above and below show Eva participating in a free art activity that McGhees set up outside the store for the Council's annual Christmas Street Mall. These are just two concrete examples of the positive presence of a good local business.

Ethics in fundraising

I have made a commitment to work towards ethical options for fundraising in organisations I am involved with, and I'm delighted to share a current buy-local fundraising initiative I have arranged.

Last year, Eva's three-year-old kindergarten did a book fundraiser and bought all the books online. It was cheapest (they claimed). I suggested using our local independent specialist children's book store (Westbooks); the fundraising committee declined, despite the store offering a substantial bulk-order discount.

Later in the year toy catalogues were sent home for two online stores that give a percentage of sales to the kindergarten. I used my catalogue to browse for ideas then took it into our local independent toy store (Toys in the Park) and asked the manager, Jan, to order in a few items for me.

And of course there are the ubiquitous chocolate-sale fundraisers. Twice last year (two different groups) we were asked to sell Cadbury fundraiser chocolates. Both times I politely but firmly declined, on the grounds that I thought it was unethical to raise money to benefit my own children using products known to frequently be produced with the slave labour of other children. Both times I suggested using fair trade fundraising options (coffee or chocolate). One group got so far as to ensure their boxes included plain dairy milk blocks, the only Cadbury fundraising line that is certified Fairtrade, and noted this as a fair trade option in their promotional material.

This year, at Eva's four-year-old kindergarten (McDougall Park Community Kindergarten), I joined the kindy committee. The committee has opted for no fundraising chocolate drive at all. When the topic of online toy catalogues was raised I tentatively suggested approaching local businesses to see if they could offer us a similar deal and was given the go-ahead to at least try.

Both Toys in the Park and Westbooks agreed to assist with our kindy fundraising. I am even more pleased that our kindy committee decided to go with these offers and not send home the toy catalogues at all. (If you would like to participate, details of our fundraisers are at the bottom of this post).

Initial Time: Each time the issue comes around, there is a bit more research, a few emails and conversations, and for the buy-local initiative a bit of extra time in emailing and talking. Maybe an hour or two a couple of times a year?

Initial Cost: Zero. Buying local does not necessarily cost more, especially when the wider economic benefits to the local community are factored into the price. For example, some studies suggest local businesses spend twice as much of their income in the local community as chain-stores do (never mind online purchases, which don't have a local community at all!)

Ongoing time or cost commitment: As above.

Impact: Many, many sources show the social and economic benefits of shopping from local, independent stores: community well-being, healthy local economies, product diversity, better service, local employment, reduced environmental impact (transport costs etc). For books, buying local also supports the Australian publishing industry. For toys, buying from an independent generally means more thoughtfully chosen stock, less plastic rubbish and better quality items.

As for supporting fair trade, I will just refer you to the Fair Trade website, which says it comprehensively. In brief: my lifestyle should not be at the expense of the workers who provide it to me. For a clip on what might be in your chocolate if its not Fairtrade, see Heart of Chocolate.

If our thirty-one kindy families each spend $50 at both Westbooks and Toys in the Park during the promotional month (details below), that would be $3,100 spent locally instead of going into multinational pockets, and $465 worth of books and toys for a fantastic local community kindergarten. Some families are planning their whole Christmas shop to line up with our fundraiser; others won't participate at all; this is a guesstimate! I'll try to post in the comments later in the year what the actual numbers are.

Even when my actions didn't change the fundraising that was undertaken, raising the issue was an eye-opener for most of the people involved in the committees behind the decisions. On chocolate, in particular, most of those involved in choosing to sell chocolates had no idea child slavery was an issue in chocolate production and were grateful for having been informed. I am hopeful this might influence their future choices.

Links:

- Three slightly different but overlapping lists of reasons to shop local: One Two Three

- A similar list but with every item referenced to studies providing evidence of the claim (with an emphasis on local vs Walmart)

- Article arguing for supporting Australian independent book stores

- Independent Toy Specialists of Australia Co-op Ltd 

 

Get involved:

In October, shop at Toys in the Park (403 Albany Hwy Vic Park 08 9470 3981 - featured in all the pics on this post) either in-store or online and mention McDougall Park Community Kindergarten and 10% of your sale price will be put towards a credit account for the kindy to purchase resources. If you order online, send an email through the contact form to ensure the kindy benefits from your purchase.

In November, try it at Westbooks for kindy to get 20% of the sale credited (although you may need an appropriate bit of paper in your hand - I am still working on details with the store, who are currently moving premises - contact me in late October if you would like more info)

Kindy car-pooling

Driving to kindergarten five days a fortnight is not something I had hoped to be doing.

However, when we found the wonderful play-based McDougall Park Community Kindergarten two suburbs away we decided it was worth the short drive. We were thrilled for many reasons that Eva's best friend from a couple of blocks away also enrolled at McDougall Park, but one was that it allows us to share the driving. We split drop-offs and pick-ups between the two families and are effectively taking one car off the road each kindy day.

Initial Time: a few minutes of conversation to make arrangements (unless you count four+ years of cultivating friendship between two families in the same neighbourhood). About five minutes is added to each of our kindy runs to pick-up/ drop-off - but as we are only doing half the kindy runs it is a time saving over all.

Initial Cost: zero

Ongoing time or cost commitment: occasional check-in conversations to keep arrangements rolling smoothly, but its both a time and money saver. To be honest, it was probably the time-saving benefits that first motivated us to car pool.

Impact: The return trip to kindy is around 15km, twice a day. Both families drive reasonably fuel-efficient European diesel cars. Allowing that there will be occasions when we both drive - like the first week when the children were settling in - I estimate there will be about 90 days in the year that we car pool. This means we are reducing our travel distance by around 2700km for the year. At an average of 7.5L/100km, this means about 202.5L of fuel saved, a reduction of 547kg of carbon.

 

Photos by Tyson (except the one by Ben, at the gate) - the dads actually do most of the kindy runs. Thanks J&B for letting me use photos of A!

PS: For those who get this by email - I've totally redesigned the blog in the last month, so just this once click across and have a look. There is also now a Facebook page for the blog - https://www.facebook.com/smallstepsforsustainability - but I won't be putting a 'like us' button up, as those buttons allow Facebook to track the internet use of anyone who visits Small Steps, whether they are on FB or not.

Rubbish-free lunches

Eva started kindergarten three weeks back, so we are into the world of school lunches.

We are committing to packing no rubbish into our lunch boxes.

If food needs some kind of wrapping, we use our washable sandwich wrap (such a thoughtful gift from my cousin! Thanks K&N)  Ours is from http://www.4myearth.com.au and they sell a range of other food storage type products, such as food covers (to use instead of gladwrap) and insulated lunchbox bags.

 

Reusable plastic boxes are good for things like yoghurt or just to separate out foods (so the carrot sticks don't end up in the sandwiches...)

However, food generally keeps perfectly well until lunchtime without any sort of wrapping.

This commitment also extends to our work lunches, when we are not working from home. When we are off to work in an office with a microwave, we generally take frozen food leftovers to reheat for lunch. As a standard practice we cook more than we need for dinner and freeze leftovers in single-serve boxes ready for easy lunches. (Cooking leftovers at dinner also means we can always include extras at our dinner table at short notice, and take a sandwich instead the next day. I love knowing we can offer this sort of hospitality)

We use and re-use takeaway 'tupperware' containers. They do eventually perish - after about twenty uses - and then they get washed and go into the recycling.

Initial Time: It takes no longer to pack a rubbish-free lunch of fresh unprocessed food. It does take a few minutes to cut up food and make sandwiches/ wraps that grabbing pre-packaged processed food would I suppose not need. There are whole sections of the supermarket I know nothing about because it doesn't really occur to me to buy packaged processed 'special' items for lunches.

Initial Cost: No packaging rubbish = no cost for things like gladwrap or little plastic bags. Reusable sandwich wraps from 4myearth cost between $10 and $15.

Ongoing time or cost commitment:  making lunches takes about 5-10 minutes a day, but the time is not particularly connected to the no-rubbish commitment.

Impact: This photo shows the rubbish from fifteen four-year-olds at Eva's kindy at one lunch time. The teachers noted to me that this was a pretty small rubbish haul compared to most days.

So, acknowledging that this was less than the average lunch rubbish, and a couple of kids were away, Eva's kindy class alone will generate at least this much lunch rubbish this year:

Only fifteen people need to read this blog and choose rubbish-free lunches for us to together save that much waste in a year. Actually in about half a year, as these kindy kids are not full-time students.

We might be only a drop in the ocean, but at least we're not another plastic wrapper in the ocean.

Links:

Four posts ( 1 2 3 4 ) from Little Eco Footprints about waste-free lunches - with helpful ideas of what food to pack

Special thanks to the teachers at McDougall Park Community Kindergarten for humoring my slightly strange photo request!