Please welcome today’s poster, Melissa.

Hi! My name is Melissa and I am from the beautiful state of Wisconsin. Knowing that it is a passion of mine, Allie and Courtney have asked me to write posts regarding green parenting. I happily obliged, as I feel being “green” is one of the most important things that you can do for your family’s health. It is a fabulous way to help children understand that they are a small, but very special, part of an amazing world out there; a world that they do share responsibility in preserving and protecting.

Being that we are an average family (I am an elementary school counselor and my husband works as a YMCA camp director) I firmly believe that being green should save you green. I just simply cannot afford to spend lavish amounts of money on eco-friendly items! This leads me to my first post…My search for an affordable, green sippy cup.

Here is what I wanted in an eco-savvy sippy:

1) It needed to be constructed of safe, BPA-free plastic or non-leaching metal, such as stainless steel.

2) It had to be easy to hold and easy to drink from without feeling like my brains were getting sucked out (Yes, I do try all of the cups I buy for my son! Seriously though, I’ve read that sucking too hard on sippy cups can cause recurrent middle ear infections – something all parents, green or not, don’t want to deal with!)

3) Very minimal leakage when dropped, tipped, or thrown across the room.

4) It had to be an affordable price so that I could purchase many. In my home, sippies are often lost at parks, dropped from strollers, or left in diaper bags and cars overnight.

Here’s how my search went:

1) Failed

2) Failed

3) Failed

4) Failed (I have the canvas bag full of sippy cup failures to prove it!)

Until the Klean Kanteen (Kid Kanteen) Sippy Cup came to the rescue!

This cup is fantastic because it is made from safe 18/8 food grade stainless steel, it barely leaks, and your child’s beverage of choice easily flows from spout to mouth. However, at $17.95 per sippy, was it really saving me green? I love that it will grow with my child as the sippy spout can be removed and replaced with a sports cap or screw top. But it was not really meeting requirement #4 – an affordable price so that I could purchase multiple cups now, without breaking my budget.

I then recalled reading on Klean Kanteen’s website that the sippy attachment was designed by Philips AVENT. I drove down to my local Babies-R-Us to check out the Philips AVENT Magic Cups. I was quite pleased to find that the spouts were identical to the Klean Kanteen and that all parts were made of BPA-free plastic. At $8.99 for a pack of two cups, they also met requirement #4. Even better, according to their website, Philips AVENT is making great strides to become a more eco-friendly company and has a plan to reduce their carbon footprint by 25 percent by 2012.

If you want an eco-friendly cup that your toddler can hurl across rooms without painting your walls in soy milk or apple juice, please learn from my experiences. You and your child may enjoy the Klean Kanteen and AVENT Magic Cups as much as my son and I have.

SIPPY TIP: If your child’s sippy cup becomes moldy, stained, or smelly, simply soak in a vinegar/baking soda solution for at least 15 minutes. Rinse all parts well and set out to dry in the sun, which will naturally bleach out any stains.