By Deirdre Imus

If we all join forces with other concerned parents in community, we can force school officials to do a better job of reducing our children’s exposure to lead, mercury, pesticides, and other hazardous pollutants. There are lots of easy ways to create a safer school-day environment. Bring up your concerns with other parents at school meetings, and together you can:

Persuade the school administration to make the switch to nontoxic and biodegradable cleaning products that contain few or no volatile organic compounds. You don’t need dangerous chemicals to clean a school thoroughly and effectively.

Test for lead in water and replace old pipes, since children tend to absorb more lead than the average adult.

Work with your municipality to identify, collect, and recycle mercury products that might be present in your children’s school. Start a drive to replace these products with nonmercury alternatives.

Reduce the use of pesticides in school buildings and landscapes and use alternative methods of managing pests. Integrated pest management is a collaborative effort between parents, teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, and even the students that has proven to be an effective method of managing pest infestations in school buildings, and on school grounds, without the need for pesticides.

Make sure that the outdoor play equipment, decks, and fences at your children’s schools are arsenic free. Before your child becomes ill, check the wood. You can order an inexpensive test kit to test for arsenic in the soil or in wood structures.

These tasks might sound daunting, but my environmental center can help you make cleaner, greener schools a reality. Visit our Web site www.dienviro.com or call us at 201-336-8071 to discuss ways to implement these protocols. We offer a free consultation and facility evaluation and can help your school green their cleaning, test for lead, switch to healthier paints and building materials, and even remake the food program.

Together, we can equip our schools to deal with these environmental threats and protect our children from harm.

Discover more tips to make your child’s life safer with Deirdre Imus’s Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care.

About the author
Deirdre Imus, author of Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care, is the founder and president of the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology(R), part of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) in New Jersey. She is also a cofounder and codirector of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, and the author of the bestselling book The Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids and Cowboys.

Related Links from Simon & Schuster:

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