Earth Day

Friday is Earth Day. As I am thinking about Earth Day and what it means I'm wondering what more I can do to help protect our Mother Earth.

A few years ago I gave up on using paper towels. I had leftover scrapes of hemp jersey from my sandwich and snack bags so I cut that into squares or rectangles or whatever shape I had. We have been using them ever since. About the same time, I quit using paper plates, paper cups, plastic utensils and things like that. It only takes a few minutes to wash a dish. Why not do that instead of wasting all that paper and plastic? Our coffee maker has a built in reuseable filter so there is no waste there. We bought really cool glass straws from Dharma Glass Company. Ours are clear with multicolored dots on them. You can get them in different lengths and widths. Even some that have bent tops on them.

Sometimes I have a problem using cloth to clean up a really messy mess. Like when I make candles. Soy wax cleans up pretty easily but it is still something I don't want to load up a cloth wipe with. I solved that problem by using the paper napkins that we have accumulated from fast food places. I will never understand why they give you 15 napkins for one sandwich, but they do. So I use these napkins to clean up my wax mess. But I still don't want to just clean up the wax and then throw the wax filled napkin away. I use the toilet paper rolls and stuff the wax soaked napkins in them. Then I fill it the rest of the way up with dryer lint. When I have several of them, I melt old used candles and fill the toilet paper roll with candle wax. Now when my husband goes hiking, he has a quick fire starter that didn't cost anything and keeps all of the other stuff out of the landfill.

I take my refillable cup to Dunkin Donuts for my coffee fix. I want to take my own containers to the restaurant with me when I'm pretty sure I will have leftovers. But somehow I always forget. So this is something for me to work on. But we don't eat out in restaurants much these days. Another thing that I need to work on is to remember the bags when I go to the store. I never remember to put them in the car. I have these wonderful bags and then when I get to the store they are at home. So those two things I really want to work on over the next few weeks. Each time you take a bag to the store or take your own food container to the restaurant you are saving another item from going to the landfill.

What are you doing to help protect our valuable and limited resources? Do you have a plan for changes that you want to make? What is your plan for celebrating our great Mother Earth this Earth Day?