33 Things You Can Do For Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Here are 33 fun and inspired things you can do for earth day!

Earth Day should be every day, I think. Daily gratitude for this planet that we live on, all of its abundance, amazing variety of plants, fruits, veggies, deliveries of gorgeous organic compost, getting your hands dirty and planting seeds. And today, like most days, I’m celebrating the only way I know how. Feeling that gratitude from the tips of my toes to the hair on my head. We are incredibly blessed, and we can all do our part to live more sustainably. 

So with that in mind, I wanted to show you some things you can do today and every day to live better on this earth!

Garden

1. Plant some seeds (kids love this!) ~ flowers or food, no matter what it is, it’s a truly transformative experience!
2. Opt for native plants.
3. Plant a new tree in your yard
4. Consider pollinator friendly native plants and flowers to make them happy and also to increase your veggie yield
5. Encourage dandelions, don’t try to eradicate them. They’re amazing food for bees first thing in spring, and they’re edible too!
6. Learn more about wild edibles
7. Install a rain barrel (or 2) to water your plants
8. Save seeds (and use old recycled spice containers to collect them ~ see below!)
9. Don’t apply lawn fertilizer, weed killers or pesticides as they get washed off during rain storms and end up in our precious waterways.

Community

1. Go to the beach and pick up some trash! It’s good exercise and doesn’t take long. Every little bit helps!
2. Sign up for a beach sweep with others.
3. Join a garden club
4. Ride your bike or walk instead of driving or using public transport
5. Start a community garden
6. Encourage your kids to play more outside, hike, take bike rides and look out for communities that are active outdoors. They make the world a better place!

Food

1. Cook more from scratch, and preferably seasonally and organic. This typically will lead you to choose better, fresher ingredients vs. those that are unhealthy and often unsustainable.
2. Shop at farmers markets (or even better, befriend a farmer!)
3. Consider buying food in less packaging. For instance, a box of oranges can be repurposed and used for rags in the garage, and there’s no plastic to throw out.
4. Also avoid overpackaged foods such as individually sliced items, as it creates so much waste.
5. Shop with reusable bag
6. Shop the bulk section of your store

Home

1. Buy some beeswax wraps and do without plastic
2. Exchange your parchment paper with silpat sheets (which are washable and last forever)
3. Make your own cleaning products! It’s amazing what you can do with vinegar and baking soda.
4. Choose clean fabrics such as cotton, linen, hemp over synthetics. Better for your body too!
5. Reuse! When possible, buy products in glass over plastic and reuse them as vases, containers for pens, markers, using them as a plant watering tool, etc.
6. Recycle. I can’t tell you how many people I see that still don’t do this.
7. Fix leaky faucets to save on water
8. Create art out of recycled objects, like wine corks, even jewelry out of guitar strings, etc.
9. Have some earth day activities for the kids (start them young!)
10. Keep your home temperature a little higher in the summer and a little cooler in the winter/spring to save on heating/cooling costs. Sleeping also benefits from a colder temperature, so you’ll get better zz’s too!
11. Sow your own clothes instead of throwing them away and getting new ones. I love this meditative experience, and I’ve been able to save a lot of perfectly good clothes!
12. Turn down your hot water heater temperatures.

Celebrate

Find a way to celebrate today, and every day, for the fact that we live on a dust ball in the middle of a vast, endless universe. It’s quite amazing, actually. Make today great, make this planet better with every step you take.