In The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting (Green Books, 2016) author Kate Blincoe explains that it’s not about being perfect — it’s about giving it a try, feeling the benefits for your family, and having fun while you do it. This guide provides essential advice on food and eating, eco-buying, learning and playing, family-friendly foraging, growing plants and food with your family, green days out, activities and parties, green parenting in the city, and balancing your green ideals in a busy life. Kate’s pragmatic approach will inspire you to balance green living with the realities of raising children. This excerpt describes how an old past-time, skipping rope, can easily be made eco-friendly with recycled materials.
Eco-Friendly Jump Rope
However hard you try, plastic bags have a habit of accumulating. This is a fun way of using them up, but you could also use old T-shirts or jeans. If your child hasn’t mastered skipping yet, then this is perfect for a tug of war.
You will need:
• 12 plastic carrier bags
• scissors
Instructions:
1. Cut open the plastic bags open so they are flat, then cut off the handles so that you are left with a rectangle of plastic.
2. Now cut this rectangle into long, roughly even strips, about 5-10-cm wide.
3. Tie the strips together to make a length that is about 20-cm longer than your required skipping rope and trim off any excess plastic sticking out from the knots.
4. When you have 12 lengths ready, tie half of them to a chair (or get someone to hold them firmly).
5. Plait these six lengths together.
6.Repeat for the other six. Now firmly twist the two plaits together and tape each end to form the handles.
More from The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting:
• Tips for Choosing Environmentally Friendly Toys
• Sensory Bottles for Babies
• Gooey Silly Putty for Preschoolers
Reprinted with permission fromThe No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting by Kate Blincoe and published by Green Books, 2016.