How it works:

1. Gather up some kiddos – the more the better. Many schools participate each year from elementary to middle schools, but homeschoolers, church groups, day care centers, 4H clubs, girl scouts, playgroups or neighborhoods could as well. Basically, if you have a pack of kids, you’re good to go.
2. Head to your local grocery store and ask the store manager for enough paper bags so that each child gets one.
3. Kids decorate the bags with Earth Day messages about reuse, wildlife, energy conservation, and more. I think a bag that says, “Please recycle/reuse me” is a good idea.
4. Return the bags to the store on or before Earth Day (April 22). Customers get a great surprise and a lesson in earth-friendly living from kids, when the store packs their groceries in these custom bags on Earth Day.
5. Log onto the project website and leave a report on the short report form, so that your bag count can be counted. If you’re a school, you’re entered to win a prize package.

What you get (besides a nice happy warm feeling):

“You can download a Certificate of Participation after registering your report. Your groups’ report and photos will be featured on the site, and your bags will be added to this year’s national tally. If you contact your local media, you may get some press coverage too. And don’t forget the reward of being part of an international effort to promote environmental awareness!”

Bags from 2007 Earth Day at Arbor Heights Elementary in Seattle, WA:

Discovery School in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico

See more event photos.

This cost-free environmental awareness project started in 1994 and that first year more than 10,000 kids participated. How many kids do you think will participate this year? Will you be one of them?

Learn more at the Earth Day Groceries Project website.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

If you have bin issues or just need to keep your recyclables in a place where everyone can see them then one great idea is to find some recycling storage that not only works well but looks nice too.

Design Within Reach has these great bags that can hold your recycling and they look nice enough that they could even sit in a mudroom or other inside your house area — or you know, just pretty up the garage. Personally I keep my recyclables in the house because frankly, the garage is cold at night and far away (yes I’m lazy sometimes). So, these would be so much better looking than my old brown wrinkled up bags.

You get a set of four bags for just $22 — a steal. The perks noted by Design Within Reach include:

• Hold recyclables or use as reusable shopping bags or garden totes.
• “Made of industrial-strength tarpaulin a heavy double-warp fabric that is plastic-coated the bags are waterproof and can be quickly washed out in the sink or outside with a garden hose.”
• Color coding for easy and quick recycling.
• One bag could function as a compost holder.
• “Velcro tabs enable the bags to be ganged together in a row; handles make for easy carrying.”
• “Four interchangeable printed labels are included for use in the plastic window on the front of each bag.”
• Also, the dimensions of the bags make them an easy fit in tight areas of your home.

I’ve been thinking about getting these for some time now. I do in fact tell everyone I know about them which is a sign I should just get some. They’re such a good deal that there are really no excuses not to.

See more about the bags (or order some) right here.  

Post from: Tree Hugging Family