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Earth Day officially began on April 22, 1970 and was founded by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. I urge you to take advantage of the fact that Earth Day falls on a Sunday this year – go out and celebrate it, don’t just hear about it second-hand.

My first memory of an Earth Day celebration was in 1990. I was eleven and I was running wild with some friends on the Ridge, a patch of land in-between Pine Island Road and Nob Hill Road in Plantation, Florida. All I remember of that day is a lot of talks about recycling and soda cans. I stacked old soda cans and then my friends and I excitedly put them into big red bins marked for that purpose. There were balloons. My cousin rolled down a hill, narrowly missing an anthill, but this was just another excuse for the sweaty, curious lot of us to poke at some insects. Not bad for a first earth day: soda, tin cans, and a lot of bugs.

When I was growing up, a best friend of mine lived in walking distance from the Ridge, and we’d go there all the time. We didn’t care about what danger might exist. All that mattered for us was to be free in nature. We’d stay in the woods so long that her parents yelled themselves hoarse trying to get us to come inside. But we – especially I – couldn’t be distracted. Light changes in the woods, blazing forth when you walk out of a cluster of trees. Those times represented freedom and joy, independence and adventure. I wish everyone that feeling at least once in their lives, especially the kids of today, who are growing up in a world where technology may one day entirely eclipse the natural world. Let’s make it up to us – and use this Earth Day to renew our commitment to protecting the environment.

Here are some things to do on Earth Day.

Picnic

Make the kids turn off their electronic devices and go on a picnic. Enjoy being outside.

Pretend to be Ansel Adams

Got junior explorers? Feel like being an explorer yourself? Pay attention to what’s around you. Take pictures of bugs and of the natural world.

Take the Time

Find a local celebration or simply make the time to go for a walk. Make this a perfect time to celebrate the value of the present and our hopes for the future.

By Marissa Cohen

Photo By ax2groin

We at the Desoto blog love Valentine’s Day as much as the next bunch of eco-friendly travelers. However, Valentine’s Day generates quite a lot of waste per year. Put your heart into making February 14th a green affair to remember.

Don’t Go Card Crazy

According to the U.S. Greeting Card Association, one billion paper cards are purchased for Valentine’s Day. That’s a lot of little red envelopes! Instead of buying your significant other a card, try to go with recyclable cards or e-cards. Free e-cards for Valentine’s Day are available online. Better yet, channel your inner five-year-old and get creative with a glue stick and some construction paper. You can easily create a creative and personalized card or poster by looking through old magazines to find pictures that represent your relationship. Maybe you both enjoy going to the beach? Clip some magazine pics of beachside sunsets or other fun things that are unique to your union. The sky’s the limit when lovers decide to make DIY cards.

Flower Power

Here’s another spooky, non-green fact. Everyone loves massive bouquets of roses, but over 180 million of those little red symbols of romance are bought for Valentine’s Day. Because they don’t last that long and need to be thrown away after only a few days, roses and other flowers generate a tremendous amount of waste. Make an empowered, eco-friendly choice and skip the flowers in favor of some cute plants that might last as long as a good relationship.

Earth Love

If you really love the old-time romance of sending cards, but also want to plant something with a strong foundation, try these adorable eco-friendly cards, printed on seed paper that grows into wildflowers. Talk about getting lovey-dovey with the earth.

Homemade Fun

Make the most of your Valentine’s Day dollar and stretch your money by getting busy with glue and construction paper. The decorations can be saved or reused next year, or recycled on February 15th. Better yet, if you’d like to find some funky, green decorations, check out homemade craft marketplace Etsy for natural or upcycled items.

Yummies

Valentine’s Day without chocolate is enough to make anyone’s heart break. Even if you’re ringing in V-Day solo style, chocolate is a must. For maximum green goodness, go for organic goodies.

By Marissa Cohen

Photo By Old Shoe Woman

Green travel can be divided up into three camps: the beginners, the intermediates, and the heavyweights. Where do you fit in – and how can you improve your green travel habits?

Eco-Friendly Products

Are You a Beginner?

Beginners recycle only sometimes while at home, if they can find the bin. Maybe you’ve forgotten to inflate your tires if you’re traveling by car, or you’ve forgotten to book a nonstop flight because it will use less C02 then a plane trip that will take several stops. A good way for the beginners to move up to the intermediate level? Look into carbon credits and never leave home without the water bottle.

Are You an Intermediate?

If you’re at the intermediate level of green travel, you use carbon credits to offset major plane trips and your road trip tires are always inflated. You always use stainless steel water bottles when on long trips. When traveling by plane, you remember to book a nonstop flight and also know the importance of only packing what you need. A good way for intermediates to move up to the heavyweight level? Continue to stay aware of ways to go green, no matter where you are. Make sure that you’re aware of national directories that can support all kinds of green travel.

Are You a Heavyweight?

Wow! Not only do you use carbon credits to offset trips, but you’re able to stay aware throughout your green vacation, perhaps thanks to organizations like Sustainable Travel International. Your knack for recycling doesn’t go on a holiday when you do. No, you’re able to find recycling bins within a ten-foot radius of your hotel. Renting a car? Not if you can find suitable public transport or a fantastic car-sharing program. If you’re on a camping trip, you follow the green camping golden rule: only remove what you brought with you. Most importantly? You’re always willing to learn more – and make personal adjustments that can help you find your individual eco-friendly path.

By Marissa Cohen

Photo By Sommer Poquette

When I recently read the words of Stephen Hawking in which he begged us to start looking into space colonization because he believed that we just weren’t going to have the resources to be able to continue living on earth, I was shocked for a few reasons and I asked myself some important questions.

The X Files?

Hawking’s belief has nothing to do with what anyone’s opinions are on life on other planets, which admittedly to me, is one step away from an unbelievable episode of The X Files. However, I can see his point –the earth is in danger. And, frankly, we knew this. The fact that one of the most brilliant men on the planet made this remark  is certainly shocking. Can we even wrap our imaginations around the one-day potential possibility that we’ll have to evacuate the planet due to our neglect of it? It’s a hard and sobering remark to hear. I can see where that would make us feel, well, a bit defeatist, as if everything we’ve done has had a limited impact if, as Hawking feels, we’re just going to have to eventually leave earth anyhow.

Don’t Give Up

But we can’t stop now. I’m trying to think of Hawking’s request as a call to action, an excuse to remember that for every tiny choice we make, whether it’s finding a recycling bin or choosing small ways to connect with the environment while we’re traveling, whether it’s using stainless steel water bottles on trips or seeking to get involved with the world of carbon credits, we can still have an impact.

Track the Good Stuff

Download a Smartphone tracker to keep aware of the good green choices you’re making. Several apps offer ways to track daily green choices, list nearby green groceries, or monitor your energy consumption. If apps aren’t for you, simply make a list of all the changes that you are able to make and focus on those. One of my favorite sites to remind myself to stay positive is the Nature section of The Daily Good, a website that lists all the “good” news.

By Marissa Cohen

Photo By Senthil Prabu.S

Reusable Grocery Bags

“Aren’t we green enough already?”

The person who asked that question had just discovered that I write for a green blog. We’d had a very nice chat about the nature of recycling, paper vs. plastic, and why travel awareness is important. And suddenly, she asked me, basically, why there’s still a green movement. She wasn’t being confrontational. She was just echoing a concept that I’ve seen before – isn’t it everywhere, already? Aren’t we greened out, yet? 

Green Movements

Frankly, I can see her point. To some extent, the concept of being “green” has become woven into our culture in the last several years. Once upon a time, reuseable shopping bags were nowhere to be seen or you had to bring your own. Now, they are offered for sale in every supermarket that I’ve been to. Don’t want to waste paper or plastic? No problem, you can buy a shopping bag for a dollar. Every major business offers an online bill payment option to save paper and my nine-year old niece could probably run small seminars on the importance of recycling.

Green Enough?

Do you need to be political to care about the earth? If you want. Do you need to buy hemp sheets? If you like; they’re certainly comfy. But above all, the reason we’re not green enough yet is that there is no enough when you’re trying to save your resources. Being aware should at least become part of our daily consciousness. There’s not an off switch for the hole in the ozone layer, but bit by daily bit, we can help our planet along. A good friend of mine is not what I’d consider green. He doesn’t particularly care about LED lights yet, he’s not into any exotic kind of eco-friendly fabric, and I promise you he does not stay awake at night fretting about the price of organic travel luggage, but when he recycles, everything, and I mean everything goes into a bin. That’s something.

So, if everyone knows it and if everyone seems to be on the bandwagon anyway, why is being green still so important? The very idea of being green is so, so simple that it may seem that we’ve done enough. We avoid porous water bottles, we haul our recycling bin to the curb, and we learn about green travel. Why is there still more?

Protecting our Resources

There is more because we’re doing all of this for the same reason that our grandparents saved buttons and scraps of tin in past decades: because we’re running out of resources and we want to take care of what we have. Period. We’re doing this because it’s logical to save what you have when your resources are dwindling, and it makes sense to learn how to do that. So why are we not green enough yet? Because  it’s not about enough. It’s about consistency. we need to look out the window and remember, daily, why this matters. We can’t afford to have eco-amnesia.

By Marissa Cohen

Photo By MD Anderson’s Focused on Health

I first began blogging in July and when I started, the closest I’d ever been to my own recycling bin was when I accidentally kicked it across the yard. It’s not that I didn’t recycle; I just didn’t recycle on anywhere approaching a regular basis – and I certainly didn’t think about what might happen to my old egg cartons or weekly trash. A huge part of writing about green living and alternative travel meant jumping head first into the unknown.

Talk to Me Like I’m Four

Many times, as I researched and wrote blog posts, a Denzel Washington line from the 1992 film Philadelphia echoed through my mind: Pretend I know nothing about this. Talk to me like I’m four. And four was about how old I felt, as I launched myself into blogs, newstories, and personal testimonies about eco-friendly living.

Don’t Try This at Home (Please)

Sometimes the information I learned was truly frightening. For example, there was the time I wrote five pieces about eco-friendly beauty products back to back in a ten-hour period, only to fall into a Charlie-Brown-cloud-of-doom level of hyperawareness, my brain swimming with the names of cancer-causing agents found in most traditional beauty products, convinced that the traditional beauty industry was out to get everyone.

After that, my kitchen temporarily transformed into I Love Lucy: The Green Version. With my newfound knowledge came odd, amusing – and sometimes unfortunate – home experiments: the time I tried washing my hair with a gummy combination of avocado and oil and felt like a salad for two days (mistake); the time I successfully and gleefully produced a body scrub made from salt, extra virgin olive oil, and still more avocado (better); and when I first gave up toxic filled kitchen cleansers in favor of more natural choices (as I wiped down countertops with a particularly pungent vinegar, a friend of mine broke into a fit of sneezing and said: “If you wanted me out of your kitchen, all you had to do was ask nicely.”

Making Sense of the Puzzle

These days, the world of eco-friendly living is much less mysterious to me. Sometimes parts of it are repetitive (stainless steel water bottles, unplug what you’re not using, and be aware!) but I now understand the difference between small, sensible choices and ignoring the problem altogether. The more I learn and write about green living, the more I can see a clear story emerge, one that has the capacity to help or harm us. With every choice, we have the chance to balance our individual green lifestyles against the bigger picture.

Photo by rhastings

By Marissa Cohen

Halloween is a special time of year – ghost stories, apple cider, a chill in the air. However, Halloween also has a calling card – the sight of seasonal costume stores opening up around town or in shopping centers – and with Halloween comes a lot of potential for waste. From Harry Potter masks and superhero capes to decorations and candy, Americans spent 6.8 billion dollars on Halloween this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That’s a lot of candy corn.

Once we put the costumes away for the next year and clean the fake cobwebs from the windows, what can we do with the leftovers?

Pumpkin or Scarecrow Recycling

Assuming you already used the pumpkin insides for food (pumpkin insides make a fantastic soup), there’s plenty you can do with your Jack o’Lantern after Halloween. Pumpkins have plenty of zinc and iron and can add a lot of nutrients to a compost heap. Straw can also be very useful for the same reason. Don’t have a garden or know how to create compost? Get online and search for recycling centers that will accept pumpkins and break them down. Contact local zoos to see if they can give an afterlife to your slightly used pumpkin or scarecrow’s straw.

Old Costumes and Makeup

Avoid throwing these away as they will create more waste. Either take them to a thrift store or a local theater where others can reuse them. Children’s charities often take previously used costumes. Consider having an After Halloween party and encourage friends and family to trade their old costumes. Costumes that you will never wear again may be perfect for someone else. That’s a great way to avoid spending money next year. Several makeup companies recycle makeup containers.

Save the Tombstones

If you can help it, save the Halloween decorations (or don’t buy them in the first place). Keep the fake cobwebs for another year or clean up store-bought tombstones, provided they’re not too splattered with eggs from mischievous kids. If you don’t think you’ll use them again, include them in a post-Halloween party or in the future, save money by making Halloween decorations out of household items.

Picture by Woodleywonderworks

by Marissa Cohen