Today is Earth Day! For our household it’s a holiday or at least a reason to celebrate. It’s also the anniversary of when we moved in to our new home, four year ago. A happy coincidence if you ask me.
I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning – planning on writing then getting to work on my regular day job work. But of course here I sit, an hour and one cup of coffee later, and I’m already way behind schedule. I got off on a tangent finding a source for what tree we want to buy this year to celebrate earth day. This year I’d like to order some hazelnut shrubs from the Arbor Day Society. And later today I’m thinking we’ll go out to to pick up a small cherry tree or three.
We try to plant a tree on our property every Earth Day (April 22) and Arbor Day (last Friday in April). I’d have to look at our landscape plan to see if I’ve been keeping track. I know we keep track of the Christmas trees we plant every December (we’re up to four). On the other hand I think I’ve been keeping track on the blog every Earth Day so I can go back and look that way.
I need to get to work, so I’ll leave you with these five tips for living a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle:
5 Earth Day Tips for Better Living:
- Be an informed and responsible consumer – I freaking love shopping, that’ll never change. But I, and you can be a responsible consumers. Ask your self: do I need this? If so, what are my options – like who can I buy it from and how do they manufacture it? Is the price a fair price or is it too low to cover the actual cost of social, economic and environmental implications of me buying this thing (think fairness)? What will happen to this stuff when I don’t want it anymore? Be conscious and informed; vote with your dollar to support goods and services that are fair to our planet, people and economy. Yes it requires research, thinking and weighing pros and cons, but it’s no different than shopping for the best price, which you probably do already.
- Plant native trees, shrubs and plants – As I said, we’ve gotten into a routine where we plant major trees on holidays and life events like anniversaries or birthdays; trees make great gifts by the way. Search the internet to find out what plants are native to your area. Native plants require virtually no maintenance which frees up your time and money. And it’s something the whole family can get involved in.
- Recycle paper and cardboard – 99% of the paper and cardboard we consume in our household gets recycled. We gather it up and about every other week I drive it all over to one of those green and yellow collection dumpsters at our local school. Many communities’ curb side recycling will accept paper and cardboard as well. Recycling paper is easy to get into your routine, and it cuts the amount of trash we throw out significantly – some weeks we don’t even bother taking the trash down to the curb.
- Switch to LED light bulbs – the cost of LED’s has finally come down to where they are affordable for ANY household. LED’s last a lot longer (20 years+), so you won’t be storing and changing light bulbs anymore, which saves you hassle. Also they will reduce your electricity consumption which saves you more money in the long run than the bulbs cost.
- Spread the word – if you find something that works for you and our environment, share the info with friends, family, strangers…anyone, even if it’s just one thing to one person. Energy efficiency, electric cars, LED light bulbs, honey bees, recycling….they were all things “crazy hippies do” years ago, and they’re all mainstream stuff people from all walks of life do regularly to help our planet. It is all really common sense stuff. The system has just been set up the wrong way until now, but now we’re recognizing that as people, we have the power to do things the right way.
Happy Earth Day everyone! Hoping you get out there and do something good for the planet, but really it’s about doing something good for you. Be selfish about it, and most importantly, have fun.
nine apple trees 