Celebrate Earth Day All Week Long!

Mobilize the Earth.

On Sunday, April 22, more than one billion people around the globe will participate in Earth Day 2012.  We thought we would get a head start and  launch a  “kick off” of good things all week long in honor of our world.

We began Sunday and took our recycling efforts in house on the road.  We shared with our children first hand how to help out.

Weekly our community waste management truck arrives at our home and the kids love to watch as he loads the large recycle can into his truck…but where does it go?  Not sure, if the kids give it much thought at this age, so we thought it might be fun to show them part of the cycle.

Every week I pass by a hip lil recycle machine at the grocery store but never gave it much thought as I was already doing my part at home to recycle.  It hit me that this would be a great way to share with the kids how to do “thier” part to save the planet, respect the value of the dollar,  and give back to the community.

As we drove up to the store the kids had a million questions and could not wait to get out of the car to start helping, you would think they were getting ready to go on a ride at Disneyland.  I was really surprised by their excitement, I was touched.

There was a super sweet dad with his darling 9 year old daughter already at the machine feeding plastic bottles.  We chatted with them for a bit and they helped us through the logistics of the machine process.  My kids were now even more excited. He comes monthly with his daughter to recycle while his wife shops inside the grocery store.  This is part of her chosen ways to help out around the house.  The money she earns, she keeps….which she said “I love to help out the Earth…oh and of course I love to shop at Justice”.  She walked away with $18.

Now it was our turn. I only brought a couple of items just to give the kids a sense of how this process works. California Law is $.05 for any aluminum can or glass bottle under 24 oz. and $.10 for 24oz and over.

I showed them were they could read about the value of a container, so in the future they would know to take it to our grocery recycling center or place it in the recycle bin for our waste recycle program.

Then we began our efforts.

Some of the bottles that we brought were not accepted at the machine, though you can bring them inside the store and they can redeem them at customer service.  We found out wine bottles & pickle containers do not get recycle fees.  Ha! They can still dispose of them for you, as they will get recycled in other ways.

Once you deposit your cans and bottles, you press the green finish button and a ticket disperses from the side of the machine.

You then go inside to customer service and cash in.

My kids officially got the itch and by the size of their smiles, they had a pretty fun day of giving back, gaining some knowledge and being rewarded.

Let Earthday.org know what you are doing for Earth Day: register your Earth Day events on their toolbar, tell them on Facebook, or send them a tweet.