Dreaming in Green
Gay Browne, founder of Greenopia
When my husband and I remodeled our house in Pacific Palisades in 1994, I was determined to make changes to alleviate my lifelong struggle with asthma, and to ensure that my children didn’t also suffer. Inspired by my baubiologist, Mary Codaro, my contractor and I did all I could to eliminate toxins and contaminants in building our first environmentally-friendly house in Pacific Palisades.
We did things like sealing all the plywood in the house because there wasn’t any formaldehyde plywood available (like there is now). We took out all the fiberglass insulation, and used cotton batting that we trucked in from North Carolina -- I arranged the trucking! We sealed the heating and air ducts with heavy tape so that no dust would permeate the ducts. We put in all-new copper tubing, and added water purifiers where the water entered the house to make our water as pure as possible, even adding a triple osmosis feature for all the sinks we used for drinking water.
We used environmentally friendly paints on the walls and no sealant on the floors -- only beeswax on the wood floors. We had electrical "kill switches" in the bedroom areas, so you could cut off the electric currents in the bedroom, alleviating electromagnetic waves and making the bedrooms more inductive to sleep (note: this feeling is like having the electricity going off in a storm. The house is completely quiet).
We put in many other energy saving features that were cutting edge in 1994 -- but many of the things that we did are now standard practice in "green building" today. Visit GreenBuilders.com to learn more about how you can create a more environmentally friendly environment if you are building a home. Another website to check out is GreenHome.com. The folks at Green Home have been very helpful, as well as Eric Corey Freed, who is a green architect in San Francisco. Check out his introduction in the San Francisco edition of Greenopia.
Even though we wanted to build green in every area of the house, the primary area of interest to me in remodeling was the bedroom... You don’t have to remodel your home to improve your bedroom. It’s all about the bed.
Since I was allergic to dust mites as a child, I always had casings on my mattress and pillow, which were not exactly cozy. I discovered the naturally healthy bedding collection by Mary Cordaro and my allergies have been completely gone since. Wow! What a difference this has made in my world and that of my children.
When my second child was born, I bought him an eco-mattress, an eco-friendly pillow, sheets and blankets, anticipating that he would have allergies like mine. He has always been allergy free while at home, but when we go to a hotel or he sleeps at a friend’s house, he wakes up blowing his nose and sneezing. Environmentally friendly bedding is free of dyes, bleach, pesticides, glue, clay, sand, synthetic fillers and flame retardants. It repels dust mites and mold and does not emit electromagnetic fields (EMFs).
On average, people spend 8 hours a day sleeping in their bed. That means they spend about 233,600 hours, or 9733 full days, on a bed over a lifetime. If we are sleeping on and in materials that contain all sorts of chemicals and synthetics, of course it’s going to have an adverse affect on our bodies. Switching over to all natural and environmentally friendly safe bedding means I can sleep at night knowing that my body will be safe and healthy when I awake the next morning. Even more powerful is the fact that children actually wake up less times during the night and actually sleep longer than when they’re sleeping on a "regular" mattress. As a mom, that means you actually wake up feeling like you had a good nights sleep instead of playing musical beds.
Helping your child get a good night’s sleep is establishing a lifelong ritual of establishing good sleep habits. These eco-friendly mattresses can be found at a number of websites. In most cases they are not more expensive than their traditional counterparts. If there is an increased cost in your area, it is important to weigh the long term health benefits with any additional upfront cost.
I am not advocating that you go out and change your children’s bedding right now. You can if you’re motivated to do that, but, what I advocate is that next time you have the change to buy your child a new bed, at least look into an environmentally mattress and see if it makes sense for you and your child.
I am interested in hearing your stories about "greening" your child’s bedroom!
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We just completed an eco-home renovation that has improved indoor air quality tremendously. We removed our carpeting, installed an FSC-certified wood floor that was sealed with a water-based sealant, and painted the walls with a completely no-voc paint. We don't have organic cotton mattresses, but we do have covers on the mattresses that seem to restrict dust. We have more plants in the house to help purify the air. Instead of curtains, we have insulated, duofold miniblinds that really help with energy conservation. The house is brighter, airier, and "greener," too!