3 Ways to Make the Most of Your Earth Day

For most people, Earth Day is the once-a-year time that they are willing to pitch in and do something to help out the earth. This really shouldn’t be a once-a-year task but something that becomes a daily part of your habit. So if you’re a once-a-year person then here are a few ways you can make the most of your Earth Day.

Join a Community Event

It’s likely that a town in your area is having some sort of celebration in honor of Earth Day. It may be a park cleanup, a festival or even an earth friendly documentary viewing. Whichever it might be, get out there and participate! If you only help out once a year, Earth Day is a great day to do it.

Depending on the community, some cleanup events are drop-in events, no pre-registration required. Search online and find an event that fits your schedule. Or do your own thing and clean up a park or area that you know needs some love. Community cleanup events aren’t able to help all locations, so sometimes you can help out an official cleanup location. I often do this type of cleanup during other times of the year while I am Geocaching or hiking.

For Earth Day, try to skip the car, opt to walk or bike to your cleanup location. If you aren’t attending an Earth Day cleanup, why not walk or bike that day anyways. The Earth can use all the help it can get to reduce emissions.

Shop Local

Besides community cleanup events there are other ways that you can support Earth Day. If you plan to eat-out that day, why not eat at a restaurant that serves local foods and offers reusables? Supporting local farmers lessens transportation costs, since food doesn’t have to travel as far to its final destination. Knowing that you are supporting local foods that also means you are likely consuming the best foods that your state and location have to offer. Every state has their own unique specialty food and we should be celebrating them, not trying to find the most remote foods.

Since Earth Day is on a Sunday this year. Most farmer markets are on weekends, so it would be great to visit your local one on Earth Day. It’s a great opportunity to grab your own local foods and see if the farmer market has any related events that weekend.

Create Your Own Sustainable Action

Earth Day is a great time to recognize the actions we take that are impacting the Earth. We have to also remember to consider our actions other times of the year. If you care for nature why not create your own Earth Day cleanup once a month for all of the other months of the year?

I’m already in the habit of picking up other’s trash when out and about, so why not dedicate a bit of time each month to do a dedicated cleanup? It doesn’t have to be long either, clean what you can for 30 minutes or an hour in one location. Hopefully there isn’t that much cleaning needed to take up all of that time, but any time contributed can help.

Maybe the area around your town’s high school sports field needs some help. Since single-use bottles are the most often culprits in those locations help them make their way to recycle bins. Even take a trek down your favorite trail and search just off the trail for any trash or recyclables. You’d be surprised how much man-made trash I’ve found just off the trail while searching for geocaches. Just make sure when you are cleaning up, to separate the trash and recycling as you pick it up. Making sure the items you pick up are then disposed of properly matters too!

How have you helped out on Earth Day?  

What ways have you found most successful for caring for Mother Nature?