How To Celebrate Earth Day In Calgary

Here at East Hills Bottle Depot, every day is Earth Day. And, as we celebrate Earth Day in Calgary this year we thought we’d give you some recommendations on how you too, can honour the earth, even amidst the current pandemic.

We’ve rounded up a list of ways you can take part in the celebration, depending on your comfort level. You can join online activities or get out of the house and make your statement in your best PPE gear.

This year’s Earth Day theme is “Restore Our Earth.” So if you want to connect with the rest of the world— about a billion people in more than 193 countries from the last count— go ahead and use the theme as your hashtag.

Here are ways to show the world you care:

Join Earth Day In Calgary Clean-Up Drives

Can you spot litter from a mile away? Well, then this might be the perfect activity for you. You can come alone or come with the whole family. Not only will you help heal the earth, but also teach your kids valuable lessons they can take with them forever.

Here are a few to choose from:

Kincora Earth Day Litter Clean Up

The walk-about will happen between 12:00 pm – 8:00 pm on April 22nd. The organizers will provide you with disposable face masks, textile gloves, trash bags, and a small route. 

What’s more, if you bring back one full trash bag, you get a small pizza voucher (or equivalent) from Royal Pizza in Sage Hill Crossing!

You have to register to make sure you get the pizza. 😊 Registration details can be found here.

Garbage Gang Earth Day Clean Up

This is another litter-picking activity you can do on Earth Day in Calgary. If you want to be part of the gang, this event is happening in Downtown Calgary on the 22nd.

Volunteers will meet at the city hall park at 3:30 p.m. Organizers will be providing trash gear (though in limited quantities. So you might want to bring your own, just in case everyone decides it’s the coolest place to be). Sorry, no pizza here.

SOL Official Earth Day Launch Clean Up and Fire Ceremony

The SOLjers of Light, an organization committed to raising consciousness and earth awareness, is having its official launch on Friday, April 23. The celebration will start with a clean-up activity, picking up garbage and debris from forests, communities, and parks. The day will conclude with a fire ceremony and other festivities at 5:00 p.m at Edworthy Park. 

This is a kid-friendly event. You can bring snacks, chairs, and even firewood for the fire. 
If you’re concerned about safety or going there presents problems, you can still virtually join by posting pictures of you cleaning in your community. Your post will also serve as your entry for their Earth Day contest. Head on over to the event’s Facebook page to learn more.

Organize Bottle Drives In Your Community

If you don’t want to simply join an Earth Day activity but want to lead one, you can too! It’s super easy with our Bottle Drives service.

We’ll do all the heavy lifting for you including a designated drop-off point at East Hills, a cube bag delivered to your preferred drop-off location, bottle counting, and more!

All you have to do is to spread the word. What’s amazing is that you’re not limited to doing this on Earth Day. You can do this at any time of the year and raise money for a cause or for those fancy new jerseys your hockey team has been needing.

Support Earth Day Awareness Campaigns

For Earth Day to have a lasting and meaningful impact, we need to sustain environmental mindfulness and responsible behaviour not just for 24 hours but for all 365 days in the year. And it all starts with awareness. 

This year, you can support awareness campaigns like the Arise Music Festival. Their event ARISE Online: Earth Day ft. Mike Love, Satsang, Mystic Grizzly will be live streaming on YouTube on April 22 at 7 p.m. MST.

They offer studio-quality concert performances, new music, live painting, dance, interviews, and more. 

You can also donate. If you choose to contribute $20 or more, you’ll be entered to win a special prize package, which will be announced during the stream. Every donation equals one planted tree.

Did you know that trees absorb methane and carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and decomposing wastes? These greenhouse gases are the biggest contributors to climate change. And the best way to fight climate change? You guessed it: planting trees. About a trillion of them.

A recent study shows that the world emits 30 billion tons of CO2 per year, and we can counter that by planting 1.2 trillion trees, which will reduce emissions by 90 billion tons.

Of course, it isn’t as easy as that sounds, but what that really means for you and us is that we don’t have to worry about things like places going completely underwater because of the melting Arctic and rising sea levels. 

This is important stuff, and again, it starts with awareness. This brings us to the next point in this article.

Be Part Of The Solution

Every one of us can be a part of the solution. Can’t volunteer or organize clean-up drives? Unable to plant trees, donate time and money, and help raise environmental awareness even by simply sharing information? You can still help heal the earth in other ways.

Below are easy, everyday things you can start doing to make Earth Day a meaningful celebration and make every day an Earth Day. 

• Save electricity. Unplug appliances that are not in use and turn off lights you don’t need. Because power plants use fossil fuels to create electricity, more consumption means more CO2 emissions.  

• Go paperless! Request for paperless statements and bills, and pay your bills online. 

Paper mills contribute to land, air, and water pollution. In fact, pulp and paper produce the third-largest amount of emissions in Canada.

• Conserve water. 
  • Use a cup when brushing your teeth
  • Take shorter showers
  • Have that leaking faucet repaired

Processing water and delivering it to our homes and businesses require energy, and energy consumption means greenhouse gas emissions.

• Reuse and Recycle!

You can recycle:

• Paper
• Plastic products
• Metal containers
• Bottles and jars

Thankfully, there’s East Hills Bottle Depot to make recycling your drinking containers easy (and enjoyable!) for you. 

Visit us any time and find out (if you haven’t yet) how recycling should be. 😉

Change Starts With You!

The best way to celebrate Earth Day in Calgary is by treating every single day as Earth Day! Practicing green for one day isn’t enough— at least if we want to create a huge permanent change that will positively affect the generations to come. 

So enjoy the time that we all get together to honour the Earth, but remember to adopt green solutions in your everyday routine as well. 

Now all that’s left to do is to wish Mother Earth a Happy B’earth day!