This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Kari Manlove, fellows assistant at the Center for American Progress.
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Good news: Anyone looking for more environmentally responsible options now has choices. Green alternatives are turning up all over these days — from children’s toys to weddings.
Families concerned with all the reports in the last year of toys tainted with lead paint will be happy to hear there’s a new market for toys that bypass lead and other potentially harmful chemicals completely.
Branch, a San Francisco-based sustainable design company, makes children’s toys out of natural wool and bamboo. Nest and ChildTrek are similar companies offering natural toys made out of wood and other sustainable materials. Sensing the growing consumer demand, even Toys ‘R’ Us has “gone green,” launching a new line of natural wood toys and dolls.
And the green wedding is increasingly appealing for couples aghast at the carbon footprint generated from traditional knot-tying. Green wedding planners now have plenty of tools at their disposal, from recycled wedding invitations to earth-friendly alternatives to buying a tuxedo to responsible jewelry.
According to Millie Martini Bratten, the editor-in-chief of Brides magazine, the interest in sustainable weddings has grown, over the past five years, from a desire to include a few green elements in the occasion to planning “zero waste” weddings. With a passionate, environmentally conscious generation of young adults currently graduating from U.S. colleges and universities, the green wedding could very well become the wedding of the future.
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
