Earth Day was founded in the U.S by U.S Senator Gaylord Nelson and globally by entrepreneur John McConnell in early 1970. Now, Earth Day is supported by over 192 countries on April 22nd. Every year over 1,000,000,000 people and almost every school-aged child takes part in annual Earth Day celebrations to promote conserving our environment by protecting, recycling, cleaning and innovating.
Not sure how to support Earth Day this year? Here are some examples of what you can do to spread the word:
A Billion Acts of Green
The Earth Day Network is urging people to take part in an international movement to protect our pane and secure a sustainable future for upcoming generations. There are a multitude of different ways to participate including pledging to eat less meat, reduce energy consumption, to start composting, to recycling your e-waste and so much more!
A billion is a huge number, but that’s the kind of number that will produce results. Amazingly, the campaign has already met its goal, so now they’re urging people to make it to the next goal of two billion acts of green!
Earth Day Lunch/Dinner
Looking for an easy, fun way to support for the environment on Earth Day? Here’s the perfect solution—an Earthy Lunch and/or Dinner! Start by planning a dinner with as many local and organic ingredients as possible. If your local farmers market hasn’t started up yet, there are plenty of grocery stores with local and organic foods to help you out. As an added bonus, it’s an extra greasy pizza-less day before beach season to add to the calendar.
How-to:
- Organize your fellow peeps (not the candy ones)
- Set a time for lunch or dinner—or both if you’re feeling ambitious
- Figure out where to purchase local and organic foods
- Prep
- Enjoy
What you’ll need:
- Somewhere to scarf down the delicious local and organic grub
- Plates and utensils to aid in the scarfing
- The food
- Great company to enjoy the moment with
Battery/Cell Phone Collection Day
Bring life to old electronics and batteries! All you have to do is dedicate a recycling bin for batteries and/or cell phones and place it in a high-traffic area at your organizations nerve centre. Then place a well-crafted sign (very important) above the recycling bin and watch it fill up faster than a Labrador retriever at dinner time.
How-to:
- Purchase a battery or cell phone recycling container
- Set-up aforementioned container in a high-traffic area
- Create signage to allure fellow recyclers
- Watch the bin fill up to the top
- Take the jam-packed bin to locate battery or cell phone recycler
What you’ll need:
- A battery or cell phone recycling container
- 8.5” x 11” sheet of paper or bigger for signage
- A steady-handed, neat writer—not a chicken scratcher
Trees for Schools
Simply donate a tree to a local school (we suggest more than one since you’ve procrastinated this far) for them to plant in their school yard! Not only does this benefit the environment by increasing biodiversity and local habitats, but also helps further promote Earth Day and Earth Day activities to our youth!
How-to:
- Buy a tree or two, or four
- Donate it/them to one or multiple school(s)
What you’ll need:
- Trees that are indigenous to the area and trees that require minimal maintenance are a solid choice for a project like this
Other Ways You Can Support Earth Day
- Think before you print—simple, yet effective. We’ve also got some great bins for shredding and recycling documents securely
- Encourage family, friends, schools, businesses and organizations to participate.
- Sign-up for your Annual Community Clean Sweep Day
- Adopt-A-Program! Consider getting a group together to adopt a City street, park, walkway or trail. This requires removing debris from your adopted area at least 3 times a year. Online applications are always available
- Leave your car at home for the week, utilize public transit or get your lazy buns out and walk/bike
- Plan a “Litter-less Lunch” day/week
- Conserve energy by planning activities all week with the lights out (trustworthy employees required)
- Start composting!
- Ditch the Plastic. Remove all of your plastic bags and start your week off fresh by buying reusable cloth shopping bags
With earth day now in it’s 45th year, we’ve made strides in taking care of our environment but still have a long way to go. We’ve set our own Sustainability goals at Busch Systems for 2015 and we’re well on our way to meeting them!
See the importance of recycling and conservation by checking out our Recycling and Waste facts page.
Be green, the Earth will thank you for it!
