Business Mom takes Earth Day to the Internet
Business Mom hosts an ideas list on the simple every day ways people can make a difference in our environment. Suggestions are pouring in from across North America and around the world.
(PRWEB) April 19, 2002
Earth Day is not just a day about big ecological projects believes Paula Polman, a business mom in Edmonton, Alberta. Earth Day is also about how ordinary people can make a huge impact in their homes and communities.
Polman's business, Mossberry Hollow Natural Care Products, is hosting the You Make a Difference Celebration of Earth Day in a section of her e-retail site. People from around the world have been visiting since the start of April, offering up their tips, suggestions and activities on how they make a daily difference. The response has been tremendous.
The ideas are ranging from recycling tips to encouraging wildlife renewal, natural gardening suggestions, composting ideas, donations of household goods to charities instead of tossing them into landfill, craft ideas for kids and many more ideas.
"We've had contributions from as far as France and England," Polman says, "and the ideas keep rolling in. We are co-ordinating our list with another mom run business out of the US, Anne Ramstetter Wenzel of Econosystems, a marketing research service in California, who is running her second annual "Every Day Ways" campaign."
It's not a contest between the two operations, but both businesses are encouraging contributions from a wide cross section of clientele and visitors and are offering a slate of donated prizes for an end of the month draw offered by other like-minded businesses.
"We had over 2000 hits within the first week alone to the earth day pages and expect that we'll have over 5000 hits before this is done," she says. "Promotion has been mainly word of mouth and a few contest sites so far, so the response has been very exciting."
Why do an Earth Day event? Polman explains "Earth day is about keeping our environment clean and healthy. That falls within the mandate of our business, creating and manufacturing natural bath and body care products. This is just an extension of the same. The healthier our environment is, the healthier our bodies become."
"As a mom, that is important to me, as I see so many kids with environmentally triggered illnesses like asthma and allergies. The growth rate on these illnesses has been staggering over the last few decades, especially in kids. I don't want my children to be ill because of where they live. " Polman and her family recently moved to urban Edmonton from living in the pristine environment of Canada's northern Yukon Territory.
In 1999 Scientific American published an article about the Invisible Epidemic regarding the rise of asthma in urban children and no one knows why. A New Zealand study found allergies more prevalent in urban children over rural children. Much of this has to be in direct response to what we are exposed to in urban settings, but the chemical soup is so complex that it becomes almost impossible to isolate the individual causes.
The economic costs associated with these types of illnesses are high too. The cost of asthma alone in 2000 was estimated to be US$12.7 billion, with direct costs amounting to US$8.1 billion and lost earnings due to illness and death totalling US$4.6 billion, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
Earth Day is a great event to help promote awareness of the environment we live in and with events like the You Make A Difference Celebration at Mossberry Hollow, we can share how we can all make an impact to create a cleaner, greener planet and healthier communities.
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Paula Polman is a mother of one and owner of Mossberry Hollow Natural Care Products now based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She can be reached at info@mossberry. com and the website address is www. mossberry. com.
For more information about the You Make A Difference Celebration of Earth Day please visit www. mossberry. com/earthday. htm (http://www. mossberry. com/earthday. htm ).
Some links regarding allergies, asthma and children:
Http://www. sciam. com/1999/1199issue/1199infocus. html (http://www. sciam. com/1999/1199issue/1199infocus. html)
Http://www. kidsource. com/kidsource/content3/news3/asthma.3.html (http://www. kidsource. com/kidsource/content3/news3/asthma.3.html)
Http://www. allergy. org. nz/news/research/ (http://www. allergy. org. nz/news/research/)
Http://www. nhlbi. nih. gov/new/press/01-05-03.htm (http://www. nhlbi. nih. gov/new/press/01-05-03.htm)
Http://news. bbc. co. uk/hi/english/health/newsid_819000/819377.stm (http://news. bbc. co. uk/hi/english/health/newsid_819000/819377.stm)
