Over the next few months you’ll probably be seeing more baby related posts here, though I will try to maintain a balance. This morning’s mission for us though was to decide on the mattress (and the crib) for the baby we’re expecting soon.

Organic or Not?
We’ve tried to get as much as possible made from organic cotton, but the mattress was a challenge. Although there are several mattresses using organic cotton on the market, none of them are pure organic. There are two layers that it seems just cannot be organic/chemical free:

• The fire barrier (legally required for the US);
• The waterproofing layer.

So, while they’re not really fully organic, the goal was to get as close as possible within a reasonable budget.

We ended up with the L A Baby Organic Cotton 2 in One Orthopedic Crib Mattress as our favourite, and wanted to do some more research into its organic claims.

Online, we found a post at the WindsorSpeak forums where somebody had kindly pasted in the statement from L A Baby about the organic content of the mattress, and also the chemical they use for the fire barrier (boric acid). Here’s the statement about the organic content (apologies for the caps, it was how it was in the source):

ON THE 5260 ORGANIC MATTRESS SPECIFICALLY THE CORRECT PERCENT OF ORGANIC COTTON MATERIAL THAT IS IN THE MATTRESS IS 59% THIS INFORMATION IS ON EVERY LAW TAG THAT IS ON EACH MATTRESS. WE HAVE TWO LAYERS OF ORGANIC COTTON.
THE THIRD LAYER IS 85% COTTON AND 15% POLY FIBER – THIS IS THE FIRE BARRIER THAT WE HAVE TO USE TO MEET THE STATE AND FEDERAL FLAME TESTING REGULATIONS.

Lower down in the text they also give lots of additional information about boron and boric acid that was interesting reading.

We’ll post a follow up on here to let you know more about the mattress once it arrives.

Over at Make GREEN Come True they have a list of three surprising things that can be recycled:

1. Shoes: Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe Program will turn old athletic shoes into new playgrounds and basketball courts. They do also point out that if the shoes still have some life left in them, then donating them so somebody can use them as shoes is probably a better idea.

2. Glasses: Not the kind you drink out of (although those can also be recycled), but the kind you wear to improve your vision, or just to look cool (sunglasses). Make GREEN Come True gives a couple of places where you can donate old glasses so that they can be reused (so, technically, this is not recycling, but we’ll let them off since it is better).

3. Batteries: This one shouldn’t have been a surprise really by now. At the very least, I hope most people now know not to throw them into the landfill (via their household waste). Many places now take used batteries back for recycling.

I have three more surprising things that can be recycled:

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