Green Neighborhood Association

      Today is April 22^nd, and today we celebrate Earth Day. It’s a day to bring awareness to supporting our planet by keeping it clean and free of toxins and other material that damages its core. I live in NYC. If you have ever been here, you may know that the streets can be dirty sometimes with trash that people throw down on the ground. I remember seeing someone in their car waiting for the light, opening the window to throw trash out.  This is one of the things that irritates me along with people not cleaning up after their dogs. The story I want to present today is how important it is to care for our communities and keep them clean.

       The idea of “each one, teach one,” is important when it comes to communities and the planet. We should always teach to keep where we live clean. Having the expectation that someone will clean it up is a problem because it starts with you changing that narrative. Can you imagine if someone came into your home to visit and just threw trash on your floor. This should be the same idea when we are outside trying to protect our streets and our planet.

      When we work on taking care of our home community, we can extend this into taking care of our planet. Some of the ways to do so are to…

• Recycle paper and plastic.
• Donate clothes to be reused or recycled.
• Drive less by carpooling or grouping errands into one day for less time on the road.
• Turn off the water faucet when brushing teeth.
• Use more glass dishes than plastic containers.
• Composting of your food waste to reduce the size of landfills.
• Turn off the lights in the house and open the shades for natural light in the daytime.
• Air dry clothing occasionally, using the dryer less

     There are many other things you can do to conserve energy and keep the planet clean. To learn more visit National Geographic and the United States Environmental Protection Agency websites.