11 Easy Ways to Celebrate Earth Day Every Day
Think of April 22nd as the kickoff!
1. Make your next meal with food on hand
Worldwide, about a third of the food we produce goes uneaten, which generates up to 10 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions. To put that into perspective, the aviation industry generates about 2.6 percent of emissions.
The following adaptable recipes will help you cook the food on hand:
Pizza. Choose traditional red sauce or pesto or hummus and then layer on random vegetables. Or top your pizza with leftover spaghetti (yes, that’s a thing).
Pastry. Fill a galette, hand pies or tarts with still-edible fruit that has seen better days. Or fill your pastry with savory vegetables and leftover protein.
Potpie. Because you need more pastry in your life. Make a béchamel sauce, thin it out with scrap vegetable broth, sauté some vegetables, combine everything, pour into a baking dish, top with pastry, bake, enjoy. (The recipe is in my book.)
Grain bowls. If I have cooked beans and cooked grains on hand, I can make a satisfying dish in minutes. I chop up a few vegetables—cooked beets and sprouts I start on the counter are a couple of favorites—toss everything with some wine vinegar and good olive oil, sprinkle with salt and I’m done.
Roasted vegetables. Cut excess vegetables into bite-size pieces, toss in olive oil, spread in cast-iron pans (because they clean up so easily) or baking sheets, sprinkle with salt and smashed garlic and roast at 400°F until tender (cooking times depend on the vegetables). Enjoy as a side dish or add to a frittata or a pot of roasted vegetable soup or fill those hand pies I mentioned above.
When food does go to waste, it belongs in a compost bin. Go here for more on composting.
2. Eat more vegetables (and fruit)
I have given several talks during Earth Month on sustainable cooking. The short version of my talks goes as follows: Eat lots of vegetables. (While that advice sounds simple, not everyone can adhere to it in our unjust, industrial food system.)
The meat-centric Western—increasingly global—diet accounts for about 20 percent of global emissions according to the Drawdown website. Other sources put that number as high as 60 percent. Whatever the figure, I doubt it comes as a surprise that growing and harvesting a pound of lentils impacts the environment less than producing the equivalent amount of beef.
If you load up on fresh produce when shopping, you’ll likely bring home much less plastic—fruit and vegetables have their own packaging.
3. Eat food in season
My mom in Canada once asked me why the California strawberries she buys up there have no flavor. I told her they taste delicious here (in the summer) because they travel fewer than 100 miles to our market, unlike her 2,500-mile berries.
Food that travels long distances by truck or plane, sometimes in energy-intensive refrigerated holds, begins its voyage unripe and, upon arrival, undergoes gassing with ethylene (a plant hormone) to induce ripening. And even though I can buy local strawberries in winter, those grow in energy-intensive hothouses.
Eating seasonally engenders respect for food. We also appreciate seasonal foods more when they finally appear after a long wait. And the taste can’t be beat. Go here for a list of what’s in season, when, in the US.
4. Plant a bit of food
If you have a spot outside or a sunny windowsill inside, consider growing herbs. Usually, you need only a few sprigs of an herb but must buy a full bunch—and they head south quickly. Sometimes you must buy them in plastic clamshells. Growing herbs will save money, reduce packaging and food miles, add wonderful flavor and provide the satisfaction that comes from growing food yourself.
Go here for info on regrowing basil from sprigs and green onions from scraps.
5. Use less plastic—easy as ABC (and D)
Plastic is composed primarily of fossil fuel chemicals. As we electrify our grids and cars, Big Oil needs a new market. So it has been pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into building more plants to produce plastic. Like burning fossil fuels for energy (and some plastics are burned for energy), plastic contributes to climate change.
The following are pretty painless to cut:
a. Plastic produce bags and shopping bags
You can buy reusable cloth produce bags at health food co-ops, eco-shops and online. Or sew very simple produce bags if you prefer. Stash your produce bags in your shopping bags so you’ll have them when you need them.
b. Bottled water
Of course, you can’t drink unsafe water. But clever marketing—not need—motivates millions and millions of Americans to buy bottled water. According to Food & Water Watch, 64 percent of bottled water is merely filtered municipal tap water. Not only that, a liter of bottled water may contain up to 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic.
Avoid drinking plastic by packing a reusable water bottle or mason jar. If you prefer to drink and cook with filtered water, install a water filtration system in your home.
c. Takeaway coffee cups
Thin plastic lines the inside of paper to-go cups to prevent coffee and tea from leaking all over your shirt. But hot water and plastic are a nightmare combo. Bring a ceramic mug or a thermos to your café. Or brew your caffeine fix at home, pour it in a thermos, take it on the go and save a small fortune every month.
d. Plastic wrap
Have half an onion? Store it cut-side down on a plate. Didn’t polish off the pasta salad? Cover the bowl with a plate. As your bread dough ferments or proofs in a bowl, put a plate on top, not plastic wrap. Go here for 50 ways to kick plastic.
6. Buy nothing new
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date by which humanity has consumed all the resources that the planet can regenerate in one year. In 2023, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 2nd. That left us nothing to live on from (most of) August through to December, which means we borrowed against the future. This year, we’ll borrow again. We’re in the red. Our account is overdue. The bill collectors keep calling.
When you want to buy something, wait
In a 2017 New York Times article that Ann Patchett wrote about her year of no shopping, she offered this advice:
In March I wished I had a Fitbit, the new one that looked like a bracelet and didn’t need to be connected to a smartphone. For four days I really wanted a Fitbit. And then — poof! — I didn’t want one. I remember my parents trying to teach me this lesson when I was a child: If you want something, wait awhile. Chances are the feeling will pass.
And if the feeling doesn’t pass, sometimes what you need simply turns up (eventually). It’s that whole ask-the-Universe thing. This happens to me on a regular basis.
Join a Buy Nothing group this Earth Day
If you don’t already belong to a Buy Nothing group, consider joining one. Not only can you request things you want and need, you’ll also find takers for the stuff you want to unload.
7. Plant natives to regenerate biodiversity
Until recently, like most North American yards, non-native plants dotted the perimeter of ours. That means native insects that evolved to eat native plants had nothing to eat. No food for insects meant less food for our feathered friends. A bird landing in our yard in search of food was like me grocery shopping in a clothing store. But in two short years, I’ve filled the yard with natives: ceanothus, goldenrod, small-for-now oaks, buckwheat, California fuchsia, blue-eyed grass, coffee berry and more. (The poppies just happen if you let them.)
If you wonder what you can do about the extinction crisis and the climate crisis, planting natives addresses both. Natives provide habitat for wildlife and require less water and fewer pesticides. If you don’t have a yard of your own, look for a community initiative that gets more native plants into the ground. Go here to search for native plants in the US by zip code.
8. Find out if your electricity provider offers green energy
Choosing renewable energy sources for US household electricity may be a money-saving click or two away. According to Energy.gov, at least half of all utility customers in the US can now buy renewable energy for their homes through their power supplier.
To make the switch, log into your account with your utility company and switch to green electricity if your provider offers it. If you have trouble finding information on your utility’s website, call and ask for help. Or do an online search with the terms “switch electricity to clean energy [YOUR CITY].”
You do not necessarily have to own your home to make the switch. If you rent an apartment in a complex with individually metered units, you can switch easily. If your entire complex shares one meter, talk to your landlord about making the switch.
9. Push for greener policies at work
Imagine the impact your company could make by implementing climate solutions into its business operations, its products or services, its 401k program and so on. With nearly one in three Americans worried about global warming, at least some of your coworkers will want to work together to urge your employer to take action.
Does your company already have a green team? Join it! What does it do on climate? Find out. If your company doesn’t have a team, consider forming one and figuring out who in your company has the influence to make your proposed changes happen.
The following excellent guides will help you and your coworkers start a group:
50+ Ways to Drive Sustainability, created by planetgroups.net
10. Join a climate-focused organization
The most important thing an individual can do is be a little less of an individual and join together with others in movements large enough to make change.
Bill McKibben, 350.org founder
We have the solutions at hand to prevent the worst effects of climate change—and many of them are being implemented now. What we lack is the political will to ramp up these solutions at the necessary speed. By getting involved with a climate-focused organization, you’ll work with other concerned citizens to collectively pressure governments to adopt the kinds of policies we need.
The following are just some of the many grassroots organizations pushing for climate action. A few of the groups on the US-centric list are international. Please join one (or join one not listed here) and get involved, donate money if you can or do both.
11. Be kind this Earth Day (and every day!)
We won’t stop trashing the planet unless we stop trashing each other. But our economic system rewards both behaviors. Disposable everything boosts profits for petrochemical companies that make plastic; after you toss it, you must buy a replacement. The petrochemical plants that make the plastic regard the people living nearby as disposable—predominantly people living in poverty or people of color—who die of cancer at much higher rates. Vitriol about climate change boosts engagement on social media, and thus eyeballs and ad revenues.
The ethos of an economic system built upon exploitation, extraction and competition, and in which we all must operate, can’t help but have at least some impact on how we treat each other—and especially on how we treat those who orbit outside our inner circles. I don’t know how to solve this problem but I do know that we need to be kind to one another—and to ourselves.
So for this last Earth Day action, let’s go out of our way to do something kind. That act of kindness might be listening to a struggling friend; or washing a neighbor’s sink full of dishes; or calling mom to say hello.
Kindness doesn’t cost anything. It’s infectious. And showing kindness can benefit us with “greater well-being, health and longevity.”
Of course, you can choose from many other actions. Happy Earth Day!
Events!
May 2nd: 2024 North Bay Zero Waste Symposium, Petaluma CA. I’m one of the keynote speakers at this annual industry event. Register here.
I've been really enjoying your writing. I work in a professional kitchen and we're trying to become zero waste. Do you have any ideas/recipes for potato peas? Besides composting. I look forward to hearing from you.
I love these emails, thank you for the inspiration and the links within.