The Earth Day Issue

 

Today I wanna talk about the latest issue that I always do for a living. This time it’s about a special holiday called ‘Earth Day’.

Each year, Earth Day is celebrated each year on April 22nd. The day was first celebrated in 1970 as a way to demonstrate support for environmental protection. There are many planets in the universe and nine planets in our solar system, and we all know Earth. 🌎

So what do you do when you keep the Earth clean every year?

Well…

Here are some things you can do. So listen up, peeps!

1. Littering

It's really important that you should clean up the litter in your community. Cleaning up litter in your community is a small but mighty way to volunteer your time for the sake of the planet. Taking a moment to pick up any litter you see as you’re out and about on Earth Day is helpful and easy to do. Many local environmental groups organize bigger events where you can join a team and clear roadways, highways, and neighborhood streets of litter, so see if your local community is hosting anything. I even do my part to pick up trash off the ground while I'm on my work shift. See, cleaning up the community is important to the environment. It's also important to clean up your neighborhood.

2. Clean Water

Clean and fresh water is also important. If you'd drink water so dirty, you'd spit it all out. Yuck! Plus, if you made dirty water anywhere while at the beach, the lake, or anywhere else, there wouldn't be any place for fish or other sea creatures to swim, lakes would also be dirty too, even rivers and streams would be polluted. It could also ruin the entire ecosystem. That would also make swimming a lot more difficult. Water pollution is something we should always think about. So don't throw plastic, soda cans, or other trash for that matter into the water. Water means so much as we should always use it carefully. Whenever you’re washing your hands or brushing your teeth, washing dishes, or taking a shower, turn off the water when it's not needed.

So this is what Frank the fish always said to me once, “Don’t waste water.”

3. Plants and Trees

To appreciate nature folks, there's plants and trees. They seen to grow everywhere. And the best thing about trees and plants is that they clean the air. So whenever you feel hot or if you’re in the mood for some apples or berries, take good care of them. There’s plenty more where that came from. The other nice things about them is trees is that they bring us shade in the sunshine whenever it’s hot outside. And the best part of plants is that they grow and grow and grow. This is why both of these are part of the planet we live in. Forests have trees and plants, and so does the neighborhood, the beach, and everywhere. How ‘bout that?

4. The 3Rs

We’re all familiar with the 3Rs we have keep working on as always, including recycling. That’s why we need to look for ways we can “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” throughout your home. You’ll save natural resources, energy and money, and you’ll reduce waste sent to landfills. So let’s go over those three things.

Reduce: Use less. So, The most effective way to reduce waste is to not create it in the first place. Waste reduction starts with the product manufacturer and ends with you, the consumer. Plus, think twice before printing things at work and home. You can reduce your mail by using online payment options that avoid paper bills. And there are services that will remove your name from unwanted mailing lists to reduce junk mail.

Reuse: An effective way to minimize waste is through reuse. Reuse is when you take an item and either use it again for its original purpose or find a creative way to reuse it for another purpose. Reusing items helps save more energy and natural resources than recycling, but both help decrease the amount of useful materials taking up space in many landfills. For instance, buy reusable bags and use them while grocery shopping. And bring your own bags to the store. Use a backpack or bag from home, or buy reusable bags that you can keep in your car and use again and again.

Recycle: There’s a lot of things we throw away that can be used again. And again, and again, and again! Recycling waste involves taking an item and changing it, often through a manufacturing process, so it can be used to create new materials and items. Some items are recycled into the same material, such as aluminum cans being remanufactured into new aluminum cans. Recycling is also a great way to prevent pollution, reduce energy use and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by harvesting new raw materials. In some cases, recycling prevents contamination from hazardous materials, such as the lead in car batteries and leaded glass. For example, if you have an empty carton you use for milk or juice for that matter, you can make a birdhouse or a tower for school projects. Also, if you have an empty box from cereal or other products from your local grocery store, you can use it or something else to make a cardboard house, a cardboard instrument, or anything you can think of. It’s all about recycling, and recycling is good. So don’t throw it out. Also, there’s another way to recycle.

Your old, unused or broken computers, tablets, phones and other electronics can often be recycled for free by stores, manufacturers and local governments, which saves natural resources while also reducing pollution.

Now that we know the 3Rs, here’s one more. Rethink before you buy something. If a product can’t be recycled, think before you buy it. And remind yourself where it may end up. All living things like us make waste. Not all waste we make is biodegradable. And that’s why we need to practice the 3Rs. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

(It’s not that hard.)

5. Wildlife

Here’s a couple things you can do to take care of the wild animals in the zoo or anywhere you go on a safari or a nature hunt. Take a picture of an animal you see in the forest, tide pools, or deserts. And always leave them in their natural places. You can even look at them and admire them. You can also admire nature while hiking on your bike or walking while staying on the trail.

6. Energy

Electricity is not free. So here’s what you need to do, conserve it. From turning off lights and electronics when not in use, to using a programmable thermostat, to changing your air filter regularly, there are many small things you can do to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while saving money on your utility bills. Ever notice how there’s low-carb energy that works in your home and in your neighborhood. There’s nuclear, thermal, and solar energy. That helps make cleaner fuel. You’ve heard of these before in the Schoolhouse Rock song ‘The Energy Blues’. So make sure you turn the lights off whenever you leave the room.

7. Public Transportation

Here’s a tip. Whether you're commuting to work or running errands, you just might be able to leave your car at home, even a few times a week. Walk, ride a bike, carpool or take public transportation. You'll save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and get more exercise. Now here’s another example, I always ride my bike around the neighborhood or whenever I go places in the area or downtown. And as always, there’s another solution. Take the bus! It’s another great way to help out the environment.

8. Composting

Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical, and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant and food waste, recycling organic materials, and manure. You can even turn your food scraps into nutrient-rich soil for your garden. Even if you're short on time, quick and easy things to do on Earth Day can still make a difference. Regardless of where you live, you can start a compost bin to prevent organic waste from adding to our country's already-overflowing landfills. You’ll need to go to the hardware store to buy some materials if you wanna build it though. Every time you throw out coffee grounds, veggie scraps, egg cartons or grass clippings into the trash, you're just adding to the waste going to the landfill. You can compost tons of stuff instead of trashing it — and compost is like gold for fertilizing your garden and yard. Now once you set up a composting system, all that rich fertilizer is free. Setting up a compost bin takes only a few hours. You can build your own out of wood, chicken wire or even an old trash bin; or you can save time and buy one at any garden or home-improvement store. It's an ideal way to celebrate Earth Day because it's not a one-time thing. You'll be reducing waste and building up your soil for as long as you stick with the program, which shouldn't be hard.

9. Go Local

Going local is fun, and I don’t really mean “going loco”! Duh! And right now, there’s a lot of different ways to do it. ‘Buy local’. Buying local produce and other items reduces shipping distances from food sourced overseas, and also supports local businesses and communities. Another fun part of this topic is acting local. So get this, you can get involved in environmental work in your local community. Local schools, governments, and non-profit organizations often offer opportunities for volunteers to get involved in cleaning up parks, restoring habitats, and other efforts to make communities greener. Like planting a community garden, donating your unused things, or volunteering in your community. You’ll always be in good company.

10. Keep It Going

Don’t just make Earth Day one day a year, keep your eco habits all 365 days a year to make a big difference. It’s fun to do something nice for the environment on Earth Day. What's even better is to keep Earth Day projects going beyond that. So if you commemorate Earth Day by setting up a compost bin, make sure you stick with composting. Don't let it be just a short-lived exercise. If you skip a shower to conserve water, make it a habit to conserve water in other small ways, like only running the washer or the dishwasher when they have full loads. And once you do all of this, the Earth will thank you for it, and Earth Day will have done its job.

Okay, now that we’ve gone through the things on how to keep our planet clean, we know one other thing that also makes sense. When you think green, green is universal.

Now let’s go over what I like to do every year on Earth Day. In Lawrence, I go downtown and watch the Earth Day parade on Mass St. which I’m always familiar with as always. Now the real question to that is “Where’s the Earth Day parade gonna take place?”. Glad you asked, well think about this later on.

Here’s the footage of what the parade float looks like.

And here’s some pictures of the Earth Day Fair I went to.

Right now, let’s talk about the Earth Day Fair here in South Park. Why? Because you can go in for free. It’s an event that happens every year in South and features lots of earth-friendly crafts and activities for you and your family. The “price of admission” is one used can for Cans for the Community or an item of clothing for the Ballard Center. There’s even information about our planet’s amazing natural resources and how we can protect them. The Earth Day Fair starts from 1PM to 4PM on Saturday. So here’s what I’m gonna do when I officially come back to Lawrence. I’m gonna plan on going to the Earth Day Fair in South Park and enjoy some earth friendly crafts and activities to help make Earth a better place.

Now here's a little something that I remember watching when I was a kid.

This is a Sesame Street video presentation I loved watching in my house in Lawrence Kansas. What you are experiencing is...

Sing Along Earth Songs.

It was the first Sesame Street home video I've ever seen as a little boy. I really loved watching that a lot. The songs were just entertaining, Grover was just incredible and so as the other Sesame Street Muppets, even Big Bird was there too. I even heard 'Oscar's Junk Band' in it too.

You know something, I also watched that song on the 'Sesame Street 2' video my mom made on tape once. It didn't have any sound when it was recorded on VHS. When I put this clip on a remixed version of this video presentation on a homemade DVD, you can hear the full version of the song this time with Bob McGrath appearing in it.

When I sent the homemade version of Sing Along Earth Songs I made with the clips and all the segments on DVD to Mrs. Rettig's class in Cordley Elementary School, she really loved it and I was really thankful for that. I'm hoping to make yet another version of the video presentation on DVD when I get a chance to download the pro version of the DVD Creator on my Mac. To be honest with you, I wanna make more DVDs once again real soon. (As long as I get my computer's act together.)

Oh yeah, and I also remember another episode I saw of Barney & Friends I watching that day when I was little. The episode was titled "Our Earth, Our Home", and in that episode Barney teaches his friends about ways to save the Earth. I can't imagine how much fun Barney was having and learning how to keep our planet clean. That episode was just as beautiful and exciting to watch on public television that time. In this episode, there’s even a silly symphony Barney and his friends did on a version of the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’. A bit of classical music was really splendid. This is why protecting the environment is important.

Okay, and now for my Earth Day challenge before the Earth Day Fair starts. If I wanna join an Earth Day parade here in Lawrence, we’ll need the perfect float that fits my style for going green. To build it, first of all, we’ll need to brainstorm for ideas. Discuss with your team on a theme or design of the float including the color motif and materials you're going to use. Next, we’ll secure materials and location for building the float. Then we build the framework, and after that we have fun decorating. And then, the parade float’s all finished and ready to go. To do that, I’ll need to find somebody who can help me out on that. In fact, it’ll talk a lot more involvement to make this idea a reality. So without further ado, we can work together and see what this Earth Day parade float idea can really do.

My next idea for Earth Day in Lawrence would be selling a painting I made of Planet Earth. In case you’ll remember on that one the next time I show it to you, here’s what it looks like. This is a painting I made that’s special for Earth Day. It’s titled “A Message To The Earth”. I used Posch markers and acrylic paint to put them all together.

It represents a picture of planet Earth that has the words ‘Love Our Earth’, ‘Think Green’, and ‘Protect Our Environment’ which goes around in a circle. Pretty cool, don’t you think. So that’s what I’m gonna do next, at the Earth Day Fair or to someone I know. You know, just to be sure. Folks, if you like this painting and feel like getting this one sold, let me know. I’d be pleased if you help me out on this one too. Plus, if you like my special Earth Day blog, feel free to comment on some more info on some new ideas for the next Earth Day Fair in Lawrence Kansas.

That's all for now, check back later for another Lawrence Monthly Blog story. I can't wait to share my next story with you, and I also hope that you can share your own stories too. We'd love to hear from you. So please share your thoughts, feelings, and ideas about Earth Day in Lawrence Kansas. So long for now, and have a happy Earth Day.

P.S.  Don't forget to always think green.