About
Why recycling and babies?
I’m a radio presenter by trade and recycledbaby.co.uk started on a radio show in Coventry during Green month in spring 2008. We were being asked to make a commitment to the environment that was relevant and easy. It is easy to say you will make a commitment. “Oh yes I’ll buy reusable carrier bags.” “I’ll turn everything off of standby.” But it is a lot harder to promise something and put it into practice.
I was pregnant at the time and at the stage where it suddenly becomes real because you have to start buying a HUGE amount of stuff for your new arrival. In preparation I went to one of those big baby shows at the NEC in Birmingham where I saw people leaving with huge bags full of baby stuff. People were giving us bags full of bits and bobs, not much of it useful, and we bought a few things we thought we needed. As I looked around I realized we were being very restrained compared to everyone else. They seemed to be leaving weighed down with huge amounts of clothes, bedding, nursery decorations, massive bags, pushchairs and more. One woman was leaving and pushing out an enormous wooden cot built like a sleigh with a net thing over the top of it. That net had so much sparkle it looked like the Christmas fairy had thrown up over it and it would only be used for the first year of the baby’s life and then what would happen to it?
As I looked around it dawned on me – all this stuff would be used for a few months and then hidden away in lofts and garages, or worse, thrown out. Babies would grow out of everything quickly and the landfill would be overflowing with things they no longer needed. Suddenly it made perfect sense for us to make a commitment to do everything I could to reuse and recycle. Sure there are some things you have to buy new for a baby but there is even more stuff that you can recycle.
So the recycled baby project was born. I would make every effort to reuse or recycle as much as I could when it came to my new baby. This way I could put my hand on my heart and say I did my bit to save the planet and its precious resources. So I started talking about it on the radio and people started to help me with their old baby things. Each time I got something I needed it set off a little warm glow inside me. I was bitten by the recycling bug.
It was the start of a journey that is still fun, challenging and interesting. As any parent knows – they don’t stop needing stuff – in fact they need more and more – so our promise to the environment just keeps on going and growing. This blog is a record of our story.
