If we’re really, really serious about the planet, celebrating Earth Day (which happens on April 22) for just one day isn’t going to cut it.  Surely Earth deserves more of our attention than just once-a-year remembrances.

Usually around this time company outings will be all geared one way or another towards the planet.  Maybe it’s a tree-planting drive, or a beach clean-up, or a trip to an organic farm (complete with brochures and posters and maybe some souvenirs and matching T-shirts).  But what happens the next day and the days after that?  We can’t just slip back to our regular (i.e. wasteful and fully convenient) ways just because we’ve spent a whole day being earth-friendly.  Celebrations are fine and all to raise awareness, but if we don’t follow it up with a commitment this whole Earth Day thing becomes a misguided farce.

So how exactly do we make concrete, positive efforts for the planet?  By challenging ourselves in four key areas: food, energy, water, and waste.

Food

The Challenge: Plan a cookout with your friends and families, but let’s keep the menu healthy.

The Rules:

• Skip the meat.  (If meatless meals stump you, head online for vegan recipe ideas).  Vegetarianism isn’t just good for our bodies, it’s also healthy for the planet.  Meanwhile, raising livestock for our meat consumption entails the use of lots of resources: land, energy, and water, plus a myriad of shady antibiotics as well.

• Opt for organically grown vegetables and fruits.  Befriend your local farmer at the Sunday market while you’re at it.
• Cook from scratch.  This means you’ll only use whole ingredients, not processed ones.  (If it came from inside a box, bag, or can, and lists a ton of ingredients, it’s definitely processed.)  For instance, if the recipe calls for tomato sauce, instead of buying from the store, make your own from fresh tomatoes.
• Buy locally-produced ingredients.  If your food had to be shipped from thousands of miles to get to your area (i.e. imported), get the local more earth-friendly version.
• Say No to sugar.  This is a tough one because we all love sugar, but for the sake of the challenge (and your health), stay away from it.

 

Energy

The Challenge: For one day, not just one lousy hour, live a back-to-basics life that isn’t so dependent on technology, gadgets, and electricity.  Going off-grid and off-line might be unbearable/unthinkable for most of us, but there are sweet rewards:

The Rules:

• Go offline.  For as long as you can, refrain from using your smartphone or tablet or what have you.  Revisit the good ol’ offline life and immerse yourself in books, a short game of chess or charades, or a Frisbee toss with friends—anything that doesn’t require you going online.
• Unplug appliances when you’re not using them, and make it a habit from now on.
• Bike instead of using the car, especially if it’s just a short trip.  Save on gas, and get those muscles pumped up in the process.

• Upgrade your lightbulb.  You don’t need to be so fancy (i.e. remote-controlled, endlessly-hued) with your LED bulbs, as long as they’re energy-efficient, they’re good for replacing incandescent bulbs.  Plus LEDs have none of that mercury which CFL bulbs have.

 

Water

The Challenge: Drought is a real issue these days, not just affecting both our ecosystem, our economy, and our health.  So let’s be mindful of how we use water.

The Rules:

• Take short showers.  Keep it under five minutes.
• Reuse water from the kitchen.  Next time you wash your veggies, don’t throw out the water.  You can always use it to water the garden.

• Install a rain barrel in the garden.  You don’t have to let all that rain go to waste.  A old barrel can collect rainwater for use in the garden and other cleaning purposes.  Or if you’re up to the challenge, rig a closed-loop system.

Waste

The Challenge: We buy a lot of things all the time—we live in a consumerist world after all.  The problem is we have little time to care about what we throw away afterwards—all that packaging and old broken stuff.  And then there’s waste from the kitchen and garden.  For our Earth Day challenge, the goal is to limit our consumerism, and be more responsible of the waste we produce.

The Rules:
(At the Mall)

• Bring your own shopping bag when you shop.  Refuse the plastic bag they offer you at the counter.
• Buy only what you need.  You may not think it’s possible but your choice of purchase will influence retailers and manufacturers in the long run.

• Choose items that are as minimally-packaged as possible.  Right now, less than 2{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} of plastic packaging is recycled.  The less stuff we buy that don’t come packaged in boxes or cans or plastic and aluminum foil packs, the stronger the message we send to manufacturers that they need to rethink their packaging.  Tip: shunning packaged foods automatically means you’re sparing yourself from processed foods as well.

(At Home)

• Rather than throw, sell your old, no-longer-needed items online.  This is the perfect way to declutter your home while making extra bucks.  At the same time you’re also letting someone benefit from your pre-loved stuff.
• It’s time to get serious with compost.  If you still haven’t started one, there’s plenty of how-tos and tips on managing your very own compost.  Now you know where your kitchen scraps and garden waste can go.
• Shun disposables forever, stick with reusables.  Whether it’s for a birthday party or a picnic or an office get-together, use reusable dinnerware.  Single-use plastic spoons and forks and cups are wasteful, do not readily bio-degrade, and are toxic to the environment.  Also, it’s no fun eating with them.

 

* * * 

Finally, spread the word!  Little everyday actions do have an impact, so how much more if everyone joined in, so make it your mission to inform and educate people about what they can contribute for the planet.  Maybe you can hold a small talk at your child’s classroom, or have a chitchat with your relatives at the next family reunion, or with your colleagues at the office.

Earth Day comes only once a year, but we can always prolong the celebration into a life-long habit.  Earth is the only planet we have after all.  It’s the best planet there is.  So it’s time to make every day Earth Day.