Earth Day Everyday, Right?

Every year, Rockland County Environmental Management Council hosts an Earth Day poster contest for 5th graders. My son is big on arts, crafts and building things, so he was so excited to create a poster in order to enter the contest. This inspired me to write about how our world is handling the “go green” awareness during our global COVID-19 crisis. Earth Day should be everyday, right? I’d like to believe we’ve come so far regarding awareness about the amount of pollution our earth has sustained; and what we are doing to help correct the damage and save our earth. Due to the global pandemic we are facing, since the lock-down, quarantine and social distancing; it is amazing to see how our earth has slowly rejuvenated itself because of the pause. But, we are facing a new form of pollution during this COVID-19 pandemic. Have you noticed when exiting the food store or supermarket, used gloves on the parking lot ground? Yes, I’ve noticed too. Come on folks, we know better than this. We are now mandated to wear a mask if we can not maintain social distancing in certain places. In some instances, people are wearing gloves too. Every year, Rockland County has a cleanup day to “keep Rockland beautiful.” Obviously, like many other events, this was cancelled due to concerns of health and safety. Although it’s not safe to do a community clean up, there are so many other things we can do to help. We can prevent litter, continue recycling, reuse items, and most importantly, dispose of used gloves, used masks or any other garbage properly away in trash cans and not on the ground. So let’s each ask ourselves a question. During this global pandemic, even though limited to do most things like we used to, what can we do to continue to help keep our earth clean? Is it Earth Day everyday for you? Let’s continue to be safe, let’s be kind to each other and let’s be kind to our earth too.