Earth day used to be one of my favorite days growing up. Every year my mom, my brother, and I would meet up with our other homeschooled friends and go see whatever Disney Nature film came out that year. It was educational and fun and always made me want to do better to clean up the earth. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found it harder and harder to get excited about Earth day, until I decided to open my eyes and actually take in what’s happening on this planet. This past winter I watched the Zac Efron Special on Netflix called Down to Earth and it really opened my eyes to not only the health of our Earth, but also how making sustainable choices can affect our health as people. It’s a very interesting series that I highly suggest you watch this Earth day for education on what’s going on across the planet.

I opened my eyes to the amount of waste I produce as one person. Food waste in particular, and I don’t just mean the food left on my plate after I’m full – I mean the amount of cooking scraps and packaging and food that went bad in my refrigerator. I’m not about to write that I’m the perfect person and only shop bulk items, but I do try my best to do my part in limiting my own waste. There are two things I want to talk about on this subject: meal planning + composting. Something that I find helpful not only to the environment, but to my budget is meal planning. I use this meal planning book. I’m able to plan out exactly what meals I want, so I only have to buy what I need for each recipe. Doing this limits the amount of moldy food I throw out at the end of each month from over spending on food I didn’t have a plan to eat. Composting is also a huge help when it comes to protecting the earth. There are many reasons to compost and you don’t have to have a stinky compost pile in the corner of your yard to make it happen. There are community gardens, apartment compost buckets, classes on how to compost, and many other ways to put your food scraps to good use. Our landfills are OVERFLOWING with waste that we are producing faster than we can get rid of it. Burning waste can send harsh chemicals into our air that we end up breathing, and right now burning through trash is the only way waste companies are able to keep up with the excessive amount of trash being brought in every day. Composting can put those food scraps to good use. Composted fruits and vegetables and egg shells are great fertilizer. Use this as an opportunity to start a backyard garden or even sell or give away your homemade fertilizer in bulk to local farms. There is such a huge list of things you can do with composted materials that I can guarantee are better for the planet than throwing them away. If you want more information about composting here is an article about what you can and cannot compost.

While we’re on the topic of waste, something that can be actually really fun and satisfying (even though it doesn’t sound that way) is cleaning up a local park and picking up trash. When I was a sophomore in high school I went to this leadership convention and one of the activities we did was to clean up a beach. There were 20 or so students and we gathered an average of 9 bags per person to clean up Ocean Beach San Francisco, California. It was so fun to get out in the open air and walk around and satisfying to see a difference in the beach once we were done. This is a great opportunity to get together with your friends in an open air and socially distanced safe way. Meet up with your friends at a park with a bluetooth speaker, some trash bags, and gloves (these ones are compostable!) and have a socially distance clean up party! The time goes by so quickly and you can follow up with a picnic (picnic basket) at the park to enjoy the beautiful earth you did your part to preserve.

An everyday sustainable choice is reusable straws, water bottles, and silverware. I’ve linked a few of my favorites. It’s so easy to stick a mason jar in your purse and use it as your cup to grab coffee or a to-go drink at a restaurant and infinitely better for the environment than using plastic or heaven forbid – Styrofoam. I have opinions about the evil that is Styrofoam. Don’t come at me, I do use it sometimes when I don’t have another option with me, but what bothers be about Styrofoam is we have no safe way to get rid of it, it’s not recyclable, and yet we keep producing it and using it. We know how bad it is for the environment, yet still have it at most every restaurant. It’s a simple and easy solution is carry your own reusable cups, etc. and they really aren’t as much of a hassle at they sound. I hope that I helped give you some resources and inspiration on how to live more sustainably to care for the earth. Celebrating Earth Day isn’t just an excuse to get outdoors, it’s a vital necessity to perpetuate the longevity of our planet. Let’s do better together and do something for the earth April 22, 2021 and every Earth Day that follows.