Showing the Earth Some Love

Each year on April 22 more than a billion people celebrate Earth Day. Whether you’re someone who regularly makes choices that are better for the environment, or you need Earth Day to jumpstart some earth-friendly habits, it all helps. In honor of Earth Day this week, I turned to Google for some ideas (yes, I Googled it, ha) on how my family and I could contribute. And you know what was at the top of the list? Picking up litter! 

 My family and I frequently go for walks with our dog, and we often see garbage while we’re out and about. We always comment about how we should bring a garbage bag to collect it, but then don’t. That is, until today! We took two bags between the three of us and within 5 minutes both bags were full—unbelievable, right? We emptied these out into the town garbage cans and continued on with our mission.

The more we walked, the more bags we filled, and then realized carrying full garbage bags back to the cans can get really heavy! Luckily, one of the pieces of garbage we retrieved was a huge sheet of plastic, which now made the  perfect ‘sled’ to get the rest of the junk back and disposed of properly.

What We Learned:

• Picking up litter is a lot harder than we thought! Next time, we’ll plan on wearing some old clothes because we found ourselves gathering a lot of plastic that gets blown in between branches of trees and brush. 
• Planning a cleanup? Check the weather forecast! It hailed when we were out there—yes, hailed. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but cold weather definitely doesn’t help.

 I’m making it my goal for 2022 is to do this once a month rather than once a year! If we all do a little here and there, be it picking up litter or planting trees—whatever it may be—it feels good to help make the world a happier, healthier place to live. Happy Earth Day!