Beyond April 22: Living the Earth Day Mindset Year-Round

It’s wonderful that we have a special day each April designated as Earth Day. But at Keep Virginia Beautiful, we believe EVERY day should be Earth Day!

The very first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, is reported to have inspired 20 million Americans to take to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate against the impacts of 150 years of industrial development, which had taken a serious toll on both human health and the environment. We continue to recognize and celebrate that achievement each year as a way to raise awareness and inspire environmental action.

But why limit a good thing to just one day of the year?

Here are four simple ways you can make a lasting impact year-round, from your home to your workplace to your community.

Step 1: Spring into cleaning 

Spring is the perfect time to clean out your closets and cabinets—and give your unused items a second life.

• Donate gently used business attire to local secondhand stores, or try resale sites like 
  

  thredUP 

• You can donate unused or gently worn shoes to Soles4Souls, an organization that helps distribute shoes and clothing to those who need them most, like women’s shelters, veterans’ organizations, children’s programs, and schools. 

• Or, there’s even a little something in it for you if you drop off donated shoes to DSW shoe stores,  they will apply 50 points to your DSW VIP account!

• Some police departments accept gently used bikes that they freshen up and give to children in underserved areas.

• Online sites like Freecycle and Buy Nothing Project are places you can post items you want to give away to someone who’s been looking for that very item!  Choose your town, or a city nearby, and see how good it feels to unload your extra stuff while making someone else happy.

• Recycle electronics, working or not, to the Best Buy Electronic Recycling Program.  They'll accept laptops, tablets, phones, and more, with their tagline being “No matter where you bought it, we’ll help recycle it.”

These are just a few organizations that will help you rid your home of unused items in a way that will make you feel good about the organizations you help, AND the environment!

Step 2: Start simple.

Disposable plastic bags from grocery stores are the modern-day tumbleweed, lightweight and easily blown around parking lots. They accumulate in the landscape, block storm drains, and can be very dangerous to wildlife.  Instead, use reusable cloth bags to make a statement with the logo of your favorite sports team or college logo. Similarly, mesh produce bags are an easy swap for those plastic bags on a roll in the produce section.

Ditch the plastic bottle of shampoo for a shampoo bar!  Check your local farmers market or Etsy for hand-made bars in wonderful scents and quality ingredients that you can just lather up in your hands and use to wash your hair.

Bonus: If you take a flight with a shampoo bar, it won’t be counted as a liquid product through the TSA checkpoint.

The most common single-use plastics are plastic bags, water bottles, takeaway coffee cups, and plastic straws. Take a peek in your recycling bin to see if you’re using a lot of those items.  And if you have to look into your trash can to check for those recyclable items, please educate yourself about recycling!

Step 3: There’s a new R in town.

You’re probably familiar with the 3 R’s — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and maybe you can sing along with Jack Johnson’s song that introduced the concept to kids in a cool way. But there’s a new R in town:  Refuse!

Yes, reducing and reusing are still vital activities.  It’s the effect of recycling that’s being scrutinized.  Things have changed since we first met the green “chasing arrows” on the bottom of a plastic item to suggest that it’s recyclable or made from a recyclable material.

According to MIT Technology Review, July 11, 2024, “Those little arrows imply a nice story, painting a picture of a world where the material will be recycled into a new bottle or some such product, maybe forming an endless loop of reuse. But the reality of plastics recycling today doesn’t match up to that idea. Only about 10% of the plastic ever made has been recycled; the vast majority winds up in landfills or in the environment.”

While recycling was a way for municipalities to make money in the past by selling waste to be recycled, there are fewer markets for the recycled material, and it’s costing local governments money to collect and transport recycling.  Many have discontinued curbside recycling programs.

This is where Refuse comes in.  We can choose which products to use and which ones we refuse.  Single-use plastic (SUP) items have an average working life of 12 minutes, according to most sources.  That means there’s only about 12-15 minutes from the time you open the plastic fork or straw from its plastic wrapper, use it, and throw it away.  If you refuse the plastic utensils (and there are some cool reusable utensils to have on hand, including a ready supply of silverware at thrift shops) or drink your soda without a straw, you’re refusing to add to the SUP problem!

You can also refuse disposable single-use items, and choose to purchase products that offer alternatives to plastic, such as food containers made from cardboard, six-pack rings that are compostable, and bulk food products instead of individually plastic-wrapped items with your take-out lunch.

I hope you’ll give a warm welcome to the new R in town when you can carry your own refillable water bottle,  bring your own produce and grocery bags, use cloth covers instead of fighting with plastic wrap on leftovers, and refuse to be part of the plastic problem.

Step 4: Engage Your Workplace 

You know how people can champion a cause once they see its value? Be that cheerleader at your business or workplace:

• Educate your staff or coworkers. Often, people aren’t aware of the environmental concerns about Styrofoam containers, plastic forks, or disposable stirrers and straws. Lead by example with the lunch products you use and the conversations you have about them.

• Add a recycling bin to a common area to collect hard-to-recycle items, such as electronic waste, printer ink, or copier toner cartridges.

• Install a cigarette butt receptacle in permitted smoking areas so that smokers don’t throw their cigarette butts on the ground or in the landscaping. Keep America Beautiful and its local affiliates have Cigarette Litter Prevention & Recycling programs that include funding for receptacles.

• Give people an option to refill water bottles to avoid purchasing single-use plastic bottles of water. A larger organization could install a wall-mounted drinking fountain/refill station. For meetings, fill a 2-gallon beverage dispenser with water, add ice cubes, and maybe some fresh strawberry slices to offer to attendees.

Your business or workplace is an excellent opportunity to promote a sustainable lifestyle. Sometimes it even costs less to stop using disposable products. And patrons are often attracted to establishments that are implementing sound environmental practices.

There are so many ways you can make every day Earth Day. It’s good for the environment—and it’s good for you!

 Keep Virginia Beautiful is proud to unite and engage Virginians in the mission to improve our natural and scenic environment. As the state affiliate of the nationwide Keep America Beautiful network, we’re committed to ending litter, improving recycling, and beautifying communities across the Commonwealth.

About the Author: 

Beckey Watson has served as Development Director at Keep Virginia Beautiful for a decade. A passionate advocate for nature and environmental stewardship, she’s also a dedicated volunteer, writer, and Hanover Master Gardener. Beckey lives with her husband in an empty nest just outside Richmond, Virginia.