Quietly and without much ado this year, Earth Day is here again. In the midst of rising pandemic concerns, it seems that there are few official activities being offered this year, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time and effort to honor Earth Day! One might argue that as we live on Earth for all the days of our lives (unless you are an astronaut), we could and should honor these Earth Day practices every day, but that’s a decision for you and your family to make.
There are so many ways we can help our Earth, but we’ve chosen just a few to start with.
Earth Day Park Clean Up With Vegans of Beijing
Join the Vegans of Beijing at Fragrant Hills on Saturday, Apr 23, for a park clean-up in recognition of Earth Day. Much like the practice of “plogging”, you will help to pick up litter while hiking up the scenic trail. Trash bags will be provided, though in my experience you’ll want to bring your own gloves and thongs – no not that kind, the kind to pick rubbish with! You are reminded to pack your own preferably vegan picnic lunch – ideas below – along with a water bottle. Scan the QR code below to join the group!
If you are unable to make the event, you can always organize your own cleanup event whenever you can, like BCIS’ graduating student Qinglan Du. Gather your clean-up crew and head to the nearest park / outdoor space near you with thongs, gloves, and trash bags. You can even make it a competition to see who collects the most trash and the winner gets to decide what kind of pizza to have at the after-clean-up party!
Eating Less Meat
Last year, local plant-based meat company Zrou started to make its appearance on international school menus. More and more meat alternatives are also coming on to the market, but we can still do more.
My family has scheduled Meatless Mondays for a few years now, with off and on mixed success. Sometimes, we end up having to do Meatless Thursdays, or a meatless lunch on one day and a meatless dinner on a different day. But the fact remains that we are consciously choosing to eat less meat. This has been a bit of a battle with my son who declares himself a carnivore, but who also oddly enough went almost an entire week actively asking for meatless packed lunch options. I can only hope that this is due to our regularly discussing why we should eat less meat in general but particularly red meat, which my son sums up as “Cows take up land which trees need to grow (Deforestation in a nutshell) and their farts cause global warming (Not really but kind of)”.
To add to this, you could consider the challenge of not ordering waimai from a restaurant that is within walking distance to you. This gives rise to the opportunity for additional family bonding time in the lovely spring weather, which also helps work up an appetite before and aids digestion after!
Beijing’s WellWomen community has beautifully summed up some other key practices we can start to incorporate into our lives to help slow down the planet’s unprecedented destruction by human activities.
Remember, change starts with us. It starts with me.
Need help explaining Earth Day to young kids? Watch this simple explanatory video on jingkids video channel!
Images: WellWomen, Pexels
