Wednesday, 5 March 2014

Greening up baby showers


No one deserves more to be celebrated in an earth-friendly way than moms-to-be and their babies. After all, everyone wants the best for their children and the best, as we now realize, is to make healthier choices for people and the planet.
Throwing a “green” baby shower doesn’t take extra work, just planning. Start by thinking about the various aspects of a shower and how you can apply the 3Rs–reduce, reuse, recycle. For instance:
  • Reduce the amount of decor you buy, the amount of food you purchase, the amount of disposables, whether for wrapping, plates or table covering.
  • Reuse by repurposing items for decor. For instance, if you’re giving the mom cloth diapers, hang them on a clothes line strung along one wall. Intersperse with colorful pieces of cloth, cute dresses or tops or pre-used ribbons. After the party, she takes everything home (including the clothes line).
  • Recycle everything from the event. Pass on decor items, compost what leftovers cannot be sent home with guests.
Most showers involve food and maybe some games. But almost inevitably, the focus is on opening gifts. While everyone loves giving and receiving, especially when it comes to adorable baby items, how about a little more emphasis on mom and a little less on “stuff?”
Showering mom (and dad, if he’s present), with loving, thoughtful gifts from the heart costs almost nothing and will help her (and him), feel amazing. Some ideas (note that these are alternatives–not every parent or group of guests will be interested in every one):
  • Create an calming atmosphere by dimming the lights, perhaps lighting some beeswax candles, settling mom into a comfy chair, offering her socks or slippers if she’d like. Ask someone to create a CD of mom’s favorite relaxing music to be played during the event, then gifted to her.
  • Offer mom a rosewater footbath or a massage for hands, feet or neck. If the guests are comfortable with this (as well as mom), each one can take a turn offering mom a “touching” gift.
  • Prepare a selection of drinks–made from fresh organic fruit in summer or organic tea in cooler weather.
  • Have everyone bring a bead. Guests sit in a circle and string the beads one at a time explaining their choice as they do. Perhaps the color reminds them of the mom’s eyes, or a place she loves. Maybe the bead came from a broken necklace inherited from a beloved grandmother. Guests also can write their explanations on a piece of paper that mom can keep with the bracelet or necklace. Encourage mom to wear the item or keep it nearby when she gives birth, or if she’s adopting, when she receives the baby, as a reminder of the love that surrounds her.
  • Make mom a special plate of food. Each item can represent something about being a mother. (Remember to choose local and organic when possible, and of course, respect mom’s tastes and/or allergies.) Some ideas include: a carrot representing family “roots,” a mushroom representing “shelter,” a cluster of grapes respresenting “closeness,” blue cheese or another “smelly” one representing some of the distatesful things moms have to do etc. The items can be brought out on a plate, an example of what one represents offtered, then guests can toss out their own ideas.
  • Ask everyone to bring a stone from where they live. They can write a wish for the mom or baby or write their names in permanent ink. Add the stones to a pot in which a small live tree has been planted. If appropriate, parents can plant the tree with the stones around it as a lasting memory of the event.
  • Be sure to make laughter a part of the event. Maybe guests will recount cute things their kids have said or the silliest thing they ever did as a parent, or the time they “lost it.”
  • Ask the mom and/or dad-to-be, to bring a piece of clothing, baby book or photo from when they were babies and talk about their childhood memories, how they perceived their parents, and/or the most important things they want to do for and with this baby.
  • If the parent-to-be’s mom or dad is at the shower, encourage them to share memories or humorous anecdotes about the expectant parents as kids.
Eco-tips for choosing green baby shower gifts 
  • Select clothing items without chemicals (which are readily absorbed by a newborn’s thin skin). Look for organic cotton, hemp, wool or silk.
  • The safest toys are made from natural, pesticide-free materials such as untreated wood or the fabrics listed above. Seek out products made locally, and/or that are handmade and that will last.
  • Give a gift of yourself such as preparing meals for the family, driving or doing errands weekly for the first months after the baby is at home, offering to rent a movie and preparing a “parents night in,” along with babysitting, or doing a year’s worth of car washes.
  • Choose to wrap your gifts in items that keep giving–baby blankets, crib sheets, towels, scarves or other reusables.
  • Here’s a freebie that would be wonderful to include with any gift. It’s a pdf of a brochure, Simple Steps for a Happy Baby, a Healthy Home and a Better World. Download, print out one copy (on recycled paper of course.)
Eco-picks for green baby shower gifts  
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News

Two passengers on the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were travelling on stolen passports, it has been confirmed, as authorities, including the FBI, investigate whether the disaster was the result of a terrorist act.

Whatever happened to the Boeing 777 high above the South China Sea, it was quick and gave the pilots no time to issue a mayday, although there were reports that another Malaysia Airlines pilot flying ahead of the missing flight had managed to contact the plane at the request of air traffic control authorities.

There were also suggestions from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency that the plane may have attempted to turn around, after it spotted oil slicks about 20 nautical miles south of the plane's last point of contact.

Click for more photos

Malaysia Airlines plane goes missing

Dato'Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Director General of DCA, briefs the media that Malaysia Airlines fight MH370 is still missing. Photo: Getty Images

Neither of the two Europeans whose passports had been stolen were on the aircraft. The Italian, Luigi Maraldi, was travelling in Thailand and the Austrian, Christian Kozel, aged 30, was located in his homeland.

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Both the men lost their passports in Phuket, the holiday island in Thailand.

The New York Times reported on Sunday the two passengers who used the fraudulently obtained passports bought one-way tickets issued last week at the same travel agency in a shopping mall in the Thailand beach resort of Pattaya, according to electronic booking records.

A woman who answered the phone at the travel agency said she was “too busy to talk.”

It is unclear how the men traveled south to Malaysia to board the flight on Saturday. In Beijing, each man was to continue on to separate European cities, according to the electronic records, The Times reported. As transit passengers, they would not have been required to obtain Chinese visas.

Security experts in Asia said the use of false travel documents is a persistent problem in the region, but differed on the significance of the two stolen passports to the investigation.

Xu Ke, a lecturer at the Zhejiang Police College in eastern China who studies aviation safety and hijackings and has advised the Chinese authorities, said the two men might have been illegal migrants.

But Steve Vickers, the chief executive of a Hong Kong-based security consulting company that specializes in risk mitigation and corporate intelligence in Asia, said the presence of at least two travelers with stolen passports aboard a single jet was rare and a potential clue.

“It is fairly unusual to have more than one person flying on a flight with a stolen passport,” said Mr. Vickers, who publicly warned a month ago that stolen airport passes and other identity documents in Asia merited a crackdown.

“The future of this investigation lies in who really checked in and what they looked like,” he added.

Mr. Azharuddin, the Malaysian civil aviation chief, said investigators were reviewing video footage of the passengers, including their check-in bags.

Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said on Sunday investigators were checking the entire passenger list and that counter-terrorism units and the FBI have been informed.

At one stage on Sunday Malaysian authorities said there were four passengers travelling on suspicious documents, but they later revised it back to two.

Asked whether this was a security lapse, Mr Hishammuddin said "Let us not jump to conclusions and make wild speculation."

However, terrorism expert Greg Barton, of Monash University's School of Political and Social Inquiry, said modern aircraft did not just vanish from the sky and when they did, a bomb was almost always the first suspect.

''Things will become clearer once wreckage or debris is found,'' he said.

''Beijing’s reticence at linking the disappearance with terrorists is noticeable, but if debris or a black box indicates a midair explosion, expect the Uighurs [a Muslim people from the restive far western Chinese region of Xinjiang] to come into contention.''

According to the New Straits Times newspaper, contact was briefly made with the aircraft before it vanished. It was being flown by Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a highly experienced pilot, and first officer Fariq ab Hamid.

''We managed to establish contact with MH370 just after 1.30am and asked them if they have transferred into Vietnamese airspace,'' a pilot on another Malaysian Airline flight told the New Straits Times.

''The voice on the other side could have been either Captain Zaharie or Fariq, but I was sure it was the co-pilot.

''There were a lot of interference ... static ... but I heard mumbling from the other end. That was the last time we heard from them, as we lost the connection,’’ he said.

Across the world, the mysterious disappearance of the Boeing 777 is playing on most travellers’ fear of flying.

Vietnamese air force planes spotted two large oil slicks close to where the plane was presumed to have gone down in pitch darkness early on Saturday.

The slicks were the first possible indication that the aircraft, bound for Beijing and carrying 239 people, had crashed.

Passengers and crew came from at least 14 countries and included six Australians – Robert and Catherine Lawton, Rodney and Mary Burrows and Gu Naijun and Li Yuan. There were 154 Chinese nationals, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, five Indians, four French and three Americans.Malaysia, China, the Philippines, US and Singapore have deployed ships and planes to the search area, which had been widened after radar signals indicated the plane may have turned back.

Malaysian Air Force General Rodzali Daud said this theory was based on military radar. ‘‘We looked back at the records – there was an indication the plane may have turned back,’’ he said.

The Malaysian maritime agency’s director-general Amdan Kurish, who joined in the search, said his team spotted ‘‘two or three’’ patches of yellowish oil slick about 16 kilometres long.

''A ship has been dispatched to the location of the slick to take samples so we could test whether the oil is from a plane,’’ Mr Amdan said.

Even so, no trace of the aircraft has yet been found, and this failure has prompted speculation about what caused the disappearance. Apart from terrorism, other possibilities include airframe failure, bad weather, pilot disorientation, engine failure, hijacking, pilot suicide and being shot down.

David Learmount, operations and safety editor at Flightglobal media, said modern aircraft were ‘‘incredibly reliable and you do not get some sudden structural failure in flight – it just doesn’t happen’’.

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the Boeing 777. Boeing has manufactured 1030 of the aircraft and they had not had a fatal crash in their 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed in San Francisco last year, killing three passengers.

However, the missing Malaysia Airlines 777 is reportedly the same aircraft that crashed into the tail of another plane while taxiing at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport in August 2012.

An independent accident-tracking website, Aviation Safety Network, listed the accident and claimed damaged suffered by the Boeing 777 was ‘‘substantial ... the tip of the wing of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 was broken off and hung on the tail of the China Eastern Airbus 340-600, according to pictures posted by passengers on the internet’’.

At a news conference in Beijing on Sunday, Ignatius Ong, chief executive of Malaysia Airlines subsidiary Firefly airlines, said the plane was last inspected 10 days ago and was "in proper condition".

Prime Minister Tony Abbott would not speculate whether terrorism was involved in the crash.

He has offered Malaysia two Australian aircraft to assist with the search.

"This afternoon I spoke to Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to convey Australia's condolences on the loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and offer our assistance with the search for the missing aircraft," he said in a statement.

"On behalf of Australia, I offered two RAAF P-3C maritime surveillance aircraft to help with the search for the missing aircraft."

"The P-3C Orion is a long-range maritime surveillance aircraft ideally suited to this task."

Prime Minister Najib accepted the offer and the first aircraft was due to depart from Darwin on Sunday night.

The disappearance of Flight MH370 paralleled the loss of Air France Flight 447, an Airbus 300, travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, in June 2009. It fell into the Atlantic, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crew.

A report the following year found a combination of technical faults and human error led to the crash.

Heavy turbulence caused air-speed sensors to malfunction while the captain was taking a rest break and the plane began to stall.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the families of Australians listed on the flight had been contacted: ‘‘Australian consular officials are in urgent and ongoing contact with local authorities and with Malaysia Airlines including on efforts to locate the missing flight.’