This week we celebrate Earth Day on Thursday and are you wondering how to recognize it? You could switch off all the lights in silent meditation on the 22nd of April in honor of Earth Day but with the climate in such decline, how about priming the environmental pump with some actions you can take all through the month. And, little actions just might become great habits for the rest of the year… Read on for small ways you can be kinder to Mother Earth!

1. Recycle E-Waste – E-Waste is a terrible contaminate to the environment and it represents 2% of America’s trash in landfills while equaling 70% of overall toxic waste. Grab all those unused chargers, plugs, smashed phones, broken monitors, old TVs and figure out where you can bring them so they can be recycled. (Your local Staples store will take most of these items!)

E-waste represents 2% of America’s trash in landfills while equaling 70% of overall toxic waste.

2. Take a day off from driving – Pick a beautiful day and choose to walk or ride your bike to work or get your errands done while smelling the flowers along the way. 

3. Get outdoors – There is no better way to enjoy spring’s awakening than to get back to nature. Meditate or sit outside with your morning coffee or beverage of choice, listen to the peepers, or enjoy the early blooming plants. 

5. Educate yourself – Pick a topic that you are interested in and watch a video, read a book or listen to a podcast. Need some inspiration?  Here are some good topics:  zero waste, sustainable fashion, composting, energy efficiency, water consumption, reducing food waste.

A mature tree can absorb an average of 48 pounds of Carbon Dioxide a year!

7. Clean Green – Pick one toxic cleaner you use and replace it with a green one! Make it yourself (lots of recipes on the internet) or choose a greener option at the store.

8. Reduce – Rethink your space in the garage, attic, or closets and recycle anything you’re not using. Check out our blog on what to do with your worn and unworn clothing and shoes or check with local churches or fire departments on donating rarely or never used toys. 

10. Skip the fast fashion and choose natural fabrics – Fast fashion relies on cheap artificial fabrics to make garments fast to take advantage of trends. Bad for the environment and for you. Skip the trends and pick timeless classic styles that use natural fabrics so your clothing lasts longer and you are always looking great.

11. Meatless Monday – Or this week make it “Meatless Thursday”! Did you know that skipping one serving of beef every Monday for a year saves the equivalent emissions to driving 348 miles in a car? Yikes! Neither did we but now that we do we’ll do our best to make our Mondays meatless!

12. Reduce food waste – When you throw out that old food from the fridge it’s sent right to the landfill to decompose. This decomposing food emits methane which in turn traps heat in our atmosphere at a rate 25 times higher than CO2. There are estimates that 14% of the world’s cO2 emissions are from food waste. Get better at managing your food waste by using your freezer more, planning ahead, and stop over-buying!

There are estimates that 14% of the world’s C02 emissions are from food waste.

14. Email your reps – Let your local and state reps know that you care about the environment. The best way to find out any bills that are in the current legislation is to go to https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/subjects/environmental_protection/6038 and put your name behind your beliefs by emailing your local or state reps to let them know what matters to you.

15. Swear off plastic – By now we should all be aware of how plastic is bad for the environment and just how prevalent it is. In fact, plastic is so resilient that even burying it deep within the earth doesn’t keep it from impacting the environment. If you want to reduce your plastic use it could be as simple as carrying your re-usable water bottle. If you need more ideas visit plasticsoupfoundation.org.

Plastic is so resilient that even burying it deep within the earth doesn’t keep it from impacting the environment.

17. Compost – If you do have food waste, composting is a much better way to get rid of it rather than throwing it into the trash. Find out how to do it!

18. How big or small is your water footprint? – Go on over to watercalculator.org and find out just how big your water footprint is on the planet. Once you know how big it is pledge to do things like fix leaks or collect rainwater to make it smaller!

19. Hit the light switch – It’s simple… Leaving the room? Turn the lights off!

21. PreCycle – If you’re new to this term so are we!  Essentially, when you think about and look for opportunities to use products with less packaging you are “precycling”. Consider buying in bulk, using your own containers, and combining shipments to save on the number of boxes delivered. If we reduce the amount of initial waste produced, there will be less to recycle.

22. Inspire others – Tik Tok, Tweet, and post all the ways you are honoring Mother Earth this month and help to inspire others!

We only have one earth, let’s take care of her!  See you in the next blog.

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Deb Fries is a freelance designer and writer and worked for Julianna Rae in Graphics and Customer Service.  She now writes for the blog at Julianna Rae.com