April 1st kicked off Earth Month and on April 22nd, people from around the world will recognize Earth Day. This year marks the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day celebrations, after US Senator Gaylord Nelson created it along with the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. A lot has changed since the early days of the environmental movement—including a growing awareness that we need to invest in our planet.
#InvestInOurPlanet: It’s More Important Now Than Ever Before
As exclaimed on the Earth Day website itself, “This is the moment to change it all… together, we must Invest In Our Planet.”
The theme for this year’s Earth Day speaks to the urgency in which politics, business, and individuals must come together to take action to preserve our planet and protect our health, families, and livelihoods.
Put simply, the time that we have to boldly and broadly act to solve the climate crisis is short. To ensure both a sustainable and prosperous future, we must act now.
This same sentiment is reflected in the most recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report. Produced in February 2022, the Report’s main message centers around the fact that impacts of climate change can be felt in every area of the world, and they’ll continue to get far more severe if we don’t reduce global emissions by 50%—and do so within the decade.
While scientists continue to learn about the increasing severity of the climate crisis, it isn’t all bad news. There’s far more environmental awareness and action than ever before. It’s also never been easier for anyone—and everyone—to make a difference.
With that in mind, there are some simple things you can do to support our planet and our future on April 22nd, as well as the other 364 days of the year.
Celebrate Earth Day With Habits that Help Our Planet
1. Assess Your Impact
While some of us may notice when we’ve left a light on or racked up an especially high electricity bill, we often don’t think about the impact our actions have on the planet. April 22 is the perfect time to change this!
There are several tools we can use to understand how we contribute to climate change:
- The EPA’s Carbon Footprint Calculator assesses things like transportation, electricity use, and waste to determine your household carbon footprint.
- If you’re a frequent flier, the Carbon Calculator from Carbon Footprint™ also considers flights, motorbike, and bus and rail use.
- Food has a far more significant impact than people assume, and BBC has a tool to find your diet’s carbon footprint.
- For a DIY approach, consider saving a week or month’s worth of disposed items (both trash and recyclables) to get a better idea of what you consume and changes you can make.
2. Practice the 5 Rs
Many of us are familiar with the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
We can add another two to the mix: Refuse and Rot!
It’s best to try to Refuse anything we don’t really need, and Reduce and Reuse the products we do. If we can’t Rot (compost something), Recycling should be considered a last resort.
3. Make Sustainable Swaps
Nowadays, it’s easier than ever before to replace many of the essential products in our life with greener versions. Here are a few sustainable swaps to consider.
- Refuse a plastic shopping bag and instead keep reusable bags with you at all times.
- Say ‘no’ to a straw and bring a stainless steel one with you.
- Swap out single-use plastic sandwich and snack bags with those made from silicone.
- Ditch the disposable razor for a long-lasting, metal safety razor.
- Upgrade your wash-rinse-repeat routine with zero waste bar versions of shampoo and conditioner.
- Avoid buying plastic food containers and instead use repurposed glass jars from jam, nut butters, and pasta sauce.
Three Cheers for Eco-Friendly Water
There’s one big sustainable swap we didn’t mention above: plastic water bottles for reusable bottles! Every single minute, about 1 million plastic bottles are purchased—and that’s in the US alone! This translates to around 60 million bottles ending up in landfills or polluting our waterways daily. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
If you were to celebrate Earth Day with an AquaTru, just one set of filters would provide you with enough pure, delicious water to replace 4,500 plastic water bottles! In fact, thanks to AquaTru customers like you, our purifiers have already saved over 500 MILLION single-use plastic water bottles from ending up in landfills or waterways.
See how big of an impact people can have by making a simple change to their habits? With each sip of pure, safe, fresher-tasting water, you can feel good about how it’s supporting our planet. Now there’s a win-win worth celebrating on April 22nd.
