Celebrate Green Blog

by Jocelyn Broyles

I had no idea, but Earth Day has been around since 1970! It was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson who instigated a five-day, 11-state environmental speaking tour by President Kennedy in 1963, just two months before his assassination.

Earth Day, April 22, is celebrated all over the globe with all kinds of events and personal pledges to help conserve planet earth. As always, there are the little things we can do to change our daily habits and incorporate greener and more sustainable choices into our lifestyle. Earth Day is a fabulous day to take time with our loved ones and celebrate the earth’s bounty. Here are some fun and earth-friendly ways to do so:

• Image from www.globiton.com

  Earth Day 2011 falls just before Easter and is a great time to think about ways to honor and be kind to the earth for the Easter Holiday. Fill your Easter baskets with organic and free range eggs from your local CSA or farmer’s market. Often times these eggs will be naturally brown, blue and cream colored and will need no extra dye. But if they are white and there are little ones (or big ones) around who love to dye Easter eggs, use a non-toxic, all-natural dye this year. There are several recipes out there for homemade dyes (including this one where Corey demonstrates natural dyes for Mothering magazine), and I tried them last year - some worked well, some didn’t but it was fun to boil cabbage and beets to make our dyes. Glob natural paints are made from vegetable, spices, flowers and plants, are great for Easter eggs and come in gorgeous colors. You can also try this all natural dye kit from Etsy.

• Visit the Earth Day website and participate in one of their many programs benefiting the earth.
• Attend an Earth Day event in your area. EarthDay.org has a national events page, as does the EPA. Events range from Habitat for Humanity build-a-thons to Audubon events to aquarium celebrations to ocean festivals.
• Make a family pledge to do something green for the next 365 days. This can be as simple as reusing Ziploc bags, to vowing not to buy plastic bottled water ever again, to a family outing or gathering once a week that uses no petroleum-based fuel, to using only post-consumer content paper products (or deciding to forego paper towels and napkins all together).

Whatever you choose to do, you’ll be joining 77,865,301 people who have pledged to take an action to help save the planet.

Jocelyn Broyles actively participates in social and environmental activism and engages in the daily practice of living a small-footprint life. She writes for several projects, and produces her own green and sustainable lifestyle site, TheGreenExtract.com. She loves dogs, tomatoes and being outside.