Earth Day 2021

Happy Earth Day! Although we should be celebrating Earth Day everyday it serves as a great reminder to reflect and review if there are any positive changes we can make to help take care of the environment. I’m listing 5 easy swaps to reduce waste and be more eco conscious. Some of these you may already do!

Reusable water bottles:

We’ve all heard about the downside of using single use plastic. Use a reusable water bottle and eliminate the cost and waste of single use water bottles. If you do purchase water perhaps buy jugs of water to reduce the amount of single use plastic you purchase! Most are recyclable and some companies have moved towards using recycled materials. I use thisYeti water bottle because I like my water ice cold and for the kids I ordered camelbak kids water bottle and hydroflask water bottles. You can find these at most stores or you can always order from Amazon.

Reusable Shopping Bag:

Although most stores have made the switch, reusable shopping bags reduce the use of plastic and paper bags for everyday purchases. I recommend buying or making ones that are washable so when you go grocery shopping and it gets dirty you can throw it in the wash to clean it! Check out this diy shopping bag tutorial .

Cloth Napkins and cloth dish towels:

Do you use paper towels? We have drastically reduced cost and waste by switching to cloth napkins and dish towels over the years. Growing up my parents used cloth napkins but my husbands family used paper napkins. Once we got married I sewed some cloth napkins and we haven’t gone back since! I throw them in the wash once a week and we are good to go.

Reusable food storage bags and containers:

Reduce your waste by swapping for reusable containers and bags! I pack my kids lunches in these easy lunchbox containers and use these Stasher bags or thesereusable zip loc bags. I also love the glass snapware containers to store leftovers in the fridge. Do you have a favorite reusable container that you use?

Reusable straw and utensils:

Did you know that an estimated 500 million straws (clear plastic straws, bendy straws, straws on juice boxes, cocktail straws, and plastic drink stirrers) are used daily? ~ Money.com and full article can be found here

Companies have taken huge strides to help in eliminating the waste from these single use plastic straws but you can make the change by using reusable straws! Here are my favorite reusable straws.

DIY Crayons – Reuse, reduce and recycle old crayons!

The kids and I repurposed old broken crayons to create new ones in the shape of flowers. See this tutorial for details on how to make your own set! Click here

Earth Day Free Printables! I created a few Earth Day printables for my kids to reinforce the idea of reduce, reuse and recycle. You can download the files to print at home for free! Just click here.