Celebrate Earth Day at Home

Classrooms, businesses, and churches across America are going green. But what about your family? Are you making environmentally wise choices at home? Earth Day is April 22. Why not celebrate Earth Day at home by instituting several of these eco-friendly tips? Here are 10 things you can do to celebrate Earth Day at home.

1. Recycle Bins - Start by setting up 4 recycle bins--one for newspaper, one for glass, one for recyclable plastics, and one for aluminum cans. If your city has curbside pickup, you may already have access to recycle bins. Now's the time to use them.

2. Outdoor Crafts - Enjoy your backyard with backyard crafts. Make a peanut butter pine cone bird feeder, a bird house or bat house, or craft a garden planter for growing your own organic vegetables and herbs.

3. Gardens and Compost - Spend some time in your garden, preparing it for a great summer crop. Make a compost bin for composting what you used to discard as landfill waste.

4. Scratch Cooking - Why not cook your meals from scratch as you celebrate Earth Day? If you have children, use the day to teach that our foods don't have to come from a box. We don't need to purchase disposables. We can cook from scratch, improve our environment, and quite possibly, also improve our health.

5. Nature Books - Collect some nature books from your local library and spend the day reading. Learn new ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Kids will enjoy the activity and learn in the process.

6. E-Cards - Celebrate Earth Day in a paperless way. Send an Earth Day e-card to someone. Spend the day writing e-mails to lots of friends and relative you've not called in a while.

7. Native Plants - Plant native trees, bushes, or flowers in your yard. By doing so, you can help prevent erosion and help clean the air of pollutants.

8. Plumbing Fixes - If you have a leaky faucet in your home, repair it. It may not seem like a very important deal, but a leaky faucet wastes a lot of water over time. Conserve water by stopping the leaks.

9. Energy Savers - Celebrate Earth Day with several small fixes. Change out your light bulbs for energy efficient light bulbs, and add weather stripping around doors.

10. Water Savers - Here's the easiest way to celebrate Earth Day. When you wash a load of clothes or dishes, be sure the load is full. In addition, use eco-friendly detergents.

Consider ways you can reduce, reuse, and recycle. What are you doing to protect the environment? If you do at least one of these ten tips to celebrate Earth Day and implement the others throughout the year, you'll make great gains on becoming green. What's more, each eco-friendly choice you make to celebrate Earth Day at home, will have an environmental impact--no matter how small your effort seems.

Source:
Earth Day Envirolink