Happy Earth Day
From Ecomall.com, 10 reasons why breastfeeding is good for the environment.
1. Producing artificial baby milk contributes to inefficient use of land, deforestation, and soil erosion. Each grazing cow that produces milk used in artificial baby milk needs about 10,000 square meters of land. Wooded land is cleared for pasture, leading to deforestation as well as depletion and erosion of the soil.
2. The manufacturing of the packaging of artificial baby milk creates toxins and uses paper, plastic, and tin. For every 3 million bottle-fed babies, 450 million tins of formula are consumed. The resulting 70,000 tons of metal in the form of discarded tins is not recycled. The 550 million tins of artificial baby milk sold each year to bottle feed US babies alone stacked end to end would circle the earth one and a half times; 550 million tins equals 86,000 tons of tin and 1,230 tons of paper labels.
3. Making artificial baby milk contaminates water. Sewage from dairy cows as well as the fertilizers used to grow feed for them pollute rivers and groundwaters, affecting all ecosystems dependent upon the rivers and groundwaters. John Robbins of Earth Save International estimates that the water pollution attributable to US agriculture, including runoff of soil, pesticides, and manure, is greater than all municipal and industrial sources combined. In addition, half of all wells and surface streams in the US are contaminated by agricultural pollutants. In Third World countries, water is often contaminated, further jeopardizing the health of the infants. In addition, those who can’t afford the artificial baby milk often will dilute the formula, depriving the baby of nutrients and contributing to infant illness and mortality. “Baby bottle disease” is responsible for the deaths of one and a half million babies per year.
4. Producing artificial baby milk contributes to air pollution. Methane gas is second behind carbon dioxide in contributing to the greenhouse effect and global warming; cow flatulence and excretion account for 20 percent, or 100 million tons, of the total annual global methane emissions.
In Third World countries, the wood that is burned for fuel to heat the artificial milk creates further air pollution. Incineration is a common disposal method, and the burning of the packaging, plastic bottles, nipples, and other paraphernalia contributes to air pollution.
5. Processing artificial baby milk consumes energy. Artificial baby milk is factory processed and converted into powder at high temperatures. The process requires vast amounts of electric energy worldwide. Manufacturing of the bottles, nipples, and other paraphernalia of bottle-feeding also uses energy.
6. Artificial baby milk costs a lot of money that could be better spent to clean up our land, air, and water. It has been estimated that at least $429 million could be saved annually if mothers in the Women, Infants and Children’s supplementary feeding program (WIC) would breastfeed for just one month. A tin of powdered artificial baby milk in the United States sells for approximately $13. In the first year of life an infant consumes approximately 70 cans at a cost of about $910. Although currently the largest purchaser of artificial baby milk, WIC has been actively promoting breastfeeding, particularly to many immigrants who had abandoned breastfeeding for the more “American” method of bottle-feeding. In 1992, 38.8 percent of mothers associated with WIC breastfed; by 1996, that figure had risen to 46.6 percent.
7. Transportation of raw materials for the production of artificial baby milk, packaging, and all of the components of bottle-feeding consumes precious fuel. Once processed, artificial baby milk has to be transported sometimes thousands of miles to the consumer. Ecuador, for example, imports artificial baby milk from the United States, Ireland, Switzerland, and Holland.
8. Manufacturing of bottles, nipples, and other feeding equipment uses large amounts of plastic, rubber, silicon, and glass. Plastic feeding bottles, nipples, and pacifiers take 200 to 450 years to break down when disposed of in landfills sites, which are becoming increasingly scarce.
9. Menstruation is delayed for an average of 14 months for mothers who breastfeed exclusively, saving vast amounts of paper used in sanitary hygiene products. If every mother in Great Britain breastfed, more than 3,000 tons of paper would be saved every year in sanitary napkins alone. Breastmilk is absorbed very efficiently by babies, so breastfed babies excrete less and require fewer diaper changes than babies who are fed artificial baby milk. Producing diapers, menstrual pads, and tampons requires fibers, bleaches, packaging materials, and fuels used in manufacturing and product distribution-thereby sending more items to the landfill, especially if cloth diapers are not used.
10. Breastfeeding is a natural birth control/child spacer. The chance of getting pregnant while breastfeeding exclusively is less than 1 percent during the first six months as long as menstruation has not yet returned. Worldwide, breastfeeding is a more effective method of birth control than all other methods available to Third World women. In Chile, a study of new mothers found no pregnant breastfeeding women at six months postpartum, and a 72 percent pregnancy rate at six months postpartum for bottle-feeding women.27 Breastfeeding is credited with preventing a lifetime average of 4 births per woman in Africa and 6.5 births in Bangladesh.
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