Thursday, April 22nd is Earth Day and we're celebrating it all month long. To be very honest, I had never been good about recycling, let alone living a sustainable life. I knew I should, and like many, I was enamored with Zack Efron's series on Netflix. But then did I actually doing anything to better help my planet Earth...? Nope. Which kinda surprises me because as a child, with my neighborhood best buds, we made the Earth Club and truly lived by the example as recycling fanatics. We would scour the neighborhood streets and the woods where we would wander, for anything that we could recycle, mostly finding aluminum cans. But, we would search and pick up trash and would take what recyclables we did find to the actual recycling center. We did this often and loved it. I felt that I was actually helping and creating a better place to live. Then... I simply just stopped. Entered into adulthood, married life, parenting and became consumed with raising my kids to have good manners, and to overall be good human beings. Until recently, the whole reduce, reuse, and recycle stayed in my childhood. 

It wasn't until a client of mine, the ever kind with her killer Pilates teaser, challenged me to make more of a conscious effort to recycle and be better to our mother Earth. I consider Cassie my sustainability and recycle guru. You can tell and truly feel her passion for the environment. She is inspiring with her efforts in making our world a better place. A better place for my children and their children. So... it finally clicked that it was time that I myself lived by example, and help contribute to Cassie's efforts to making the Earth a better place for my own children and their future. As you'll read below, Cassie was kind enough to contribute to this month's blog post and give insight into the immediate need to make better efforts to do right by our mother Earth. She also shares some good tips on how and where to get started in making these small and very reasonable changes in our daily life behaviors.

And so we are, as a family and small business, making a greater effort into practicing a more sustainable and cleaner life. With the help of my kids and husband, our family set rules and guidelines on how to recycle on a daily basis. We started with some basics - like just knowing exactly what can and cannot be recycled. I'm a little ashamed to share that I felt quite embarrassed when I looked over all the information of what can and cannot be recycled on the City of Greensboro's recycling page. I had been very wrong, but we are on track now! My kids have made separate containers for the different items to put in the recycle bin. Glass is no longer accepted in the city's recycling bins, so we now separate it and will deliver it to a site that does allow glass. We have also challenged ourselves with using only reusable Ziploc bags and no longer are using paper towels or napkins - which isn't as difficult as I initially that it would be. We must use our reusable grocery bags (plastic ones from the stores are not allowed in the recycle bin either) and if we forget to bring them, then tough sh*t - we'll just have to deal and carry our items in our hands or throw them in the shopping cart and risk it rolling all around. Made this mistake on day one at Target, but luckily I had purchased our new bins for recyclables and used those to carry out our groceries. 

Below is some great thoughts, advice, and insight that Cassie has kindly gathered and shared to help guide us to live our best clean and recycled life. I want to thank you Cassie so much for all that you do and share and know that you are truly an inspiration and an example to live by. 

By Cassie Coon

It’s time to celebrate the earth.  It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by our daily lives, so it’s the perfect time to pause and see how small changes might make a difference in our footprint.  Have you ever driven by a garbage dump? Super disgusting. Or thought about the trash that ends up in ocean? It isn’t getting any better, it’s getting worse.  The pandemic has also increased consumption and reduced recycling efforts…think about how many masks have been used or single use plastic utensils with take out, none of its recyclable.

Did you know that a plastic bag from the grocery takes 10-20 years to decompose? A tin can is 50 years, batteries – 100 years, and finally a plastic bottle is 450 years!  What will the archaeologists think of us. With all this being said, I am constantly thinking about ways I can reduce my impact.  I obviously recycle as much as I can, but I go to the next level and think about ways to reduce.

Again, small steps can make an impact and once you get going, it gets easier….How I make a difference:

• Switch to reusable shopping bags, keep a stash in your car
• Reusable produce bags – on-line purchase or at the store, I have seen them at Whole Foods and Harris Teeter.  Also try to pick produce that isn’t packaged since most of the packaging isn’t recyclable.
• Before the pandemic, I really tried to keep some containers in my car to use for leftovers if we ate out…
• Silicon baggies instead of zip locks – love these for freezing meat too.
• Bars of soap – ditch the bottles and pumps, I even have a big bar for dishes
• Cloth napkins, dish rags, dish towels, microfiber cloths for cleaning glass, bathrooms, and putting on your Swiffer – it isn’t hard to stop using paper napkins, paper towels, and sponges…you are always doing laundry anyway.
• Mop – I am loving this type, just throw the pad in the wash after you are done.
• Bamboo brushes for dishes and teeth
• Bites – how many toothpaste tubes have you thrown away? They also have eco friendly floss
• Cleaners from concentrate – I use Shaklee, they also have a great laundry line.  There are several to choose from like Blueland. 
• Reusable bottles and cups for water and drinks….try to limit buying bottled water and drinks of convenience!
• Look for eco-friendly clothing companies like Patagonia, Pact, Vetta, and tentree
• Look for companies that give back with your purchase Feed, Bombas, TOMs shoes, etc…

None of these changes will come natural, but hopefully with practice and patience, you will find it easier and gratifying.  Nothing makes me happier than putting out the garbage and having less than a bag!