How to Celebrate Earth Day?

Earth Day is around the corner, it is on this Friday, 22/4/2011. The celebration of Earth Day is began in US in 1970 and was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, who had long pondered about finding a way to "put the environment into the political 'limelight' once and for all" (his words). Earth Day is a perfect time to reflect about what you are doing to help protect the environment. There are many ways that you can celebrate alone and with others.

Below are some things that you could do on the Earth Day.

1. Plant Trees
Planting trees helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cleans pollution, secures soil in place to prevent erosion, and provides homes for a lot of biodiversity.

2. Reduce, reuse and recycle all day long
Buy as little as possible and avoid items that come in lots of packaging. Support local growers and producers of food and products - these don't have to travel as far and so reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Take your drink container with you, and don't use any disposable plates or cutlery. Recycle all the things you do use for the day or find other uses for things that you no longer use. Carry a cloth bag for carrying things in and recycle your plastic bags.

3. Get children to recycle their old toys and games
By giving their old toys and games to younger children who could make use of them, older children learn two lessons: One is about giving to others and the second is about reusing and recycling instead of throwing things away. Adults can also do this with clothes, electrical items, books and more. Learn about product exchange communities like Freecycle and other alternatives.

4. Wear green and/or brown
Dress in environmental colors for the day; think "tree"! Wear badges if you have them that carry pithy summaries of your environmental views.

5. Carpool
If your coworker lives on the way to your commute to work go ahead and pick him/her up.

6.Use Safe Energy Light Bulb
If you haven’t done so yet replace your light bulbs with energy efficient ones.

7. Ride your bike.
Use your bicycle or other forms of human powered transportation to commute to work or school and to run errands.
 
8. Cook a special Earth Day meal.
Plan a menu that uses locally produced foods, is healthy and has minimal impact on the environment. Favour vegetable and bean products, as these use less resources to grow than mass-farmed meat. If you still would like meat, look for locally produced, organic meat. Try and have organic food completely. Decorate the table with recycled decorations made by you and your friends.
 
9. Share your Environment Info/Knowledge with others
Share of knowledges to anyone who cares about the Environment.
 
10. Make nature crafts
Gather with your family or friends to make some nature crafts with the objects that would've otherwise been thrown away to create beautiful works of art. Eg. make a basket from an old orange juice carton.
 
Actually Every day is Earth Day. Anything to help our environment is a perfect thing to do on Earth Day and every day. Don't restrict yourself to just one day a year; learn about how you can make a difference to environmental protection all the time. And put it into practice - every day!