Earth Day Challenge: 20 Small Changes with a BIG Impact

What’s the best way to show Mother Nature you care? By making the world a better place! We believe that nature offers the best solutions for lots of needs. That’s why we take our role as stewards of the earth seriously. From ways such as using recycled materials for packaging, to implementing low-impact agricultural techniques at our farms, we endeavour to do as much as we can. We want to challenge you to take part! By making small, earth friendly choices every day, you too can come along-side, keep mindful and help protect and preserve our natural environment.

1. Spend 20-30 minutes this week cleaning up your neighbourhood. Grab a buddy or your family and go for a walk. You can pick up trash or recycle bottles you may find along the way.
2. Turn off the water while brushing your teeth. It’s so easy to forget to close the tap for those two short minutes, however turning the water off will help will unnecessary water wastage and may even save you a couple of dollars on your water bill!
3. Go on a hike with some friends. Embrace the fresh outdoors and the beautiful earth around you. While you’re on the trail or path, use that time to pick up five pieces of trash you may find on the trail.
4. Take a nature walk and identify three pollinators in your area. Some might include bees, butterflies or even flies. You could even take the opportunity to play eye-spy with your kids!
5. Plant a pollen-producing plant or flower outside. This can be sunflowers, daisies or even trees such as maple or oak.
6. Lower your heater thermostat by two degrees.
7. Hang a bird feeder or pollinator house in your yard or on your balcony. If you aren’t very handy-dandy and aren’t able to build a bird house, try a simple DIY recipe. Grab half an orange and scoop out most of the inside. Fill the orange with bird seed and use macrame string to hang it for the birds to enjoy.
8. Recycle 5 pieces of plastic in your home. This not only helps with avoiding them ending up as landfill, but also aids a sustainable lifestyle.
9. Bring your own bags when you go grocery shopping. You can also keep a bag or two in your car to not only save you some money, but also reduce the amount of plastic you use.
10. Take a reusable water bottle and utensils to work or events.
11. Repurpose your Young Living packaging. Check out our blog on 10 Ways to Reuse Young Living Packaging to help inspire you with ideas and activities that you and your family will love.
12. Bring a glass, bamboo, or metal straw with you when you go out to eat.
13. Turn off the lights and unplug electronics when you leave a room. If you know you tend to be forgetful, leave yourself little post-it notes to remind yourself.
14. Try walking, riding your bike, or carpooling to work.
15. Reduce your shower time to five minutes. Did you know that an average shower usually uses 10-12 litres of water per minute? That means for your 10-minute showers, that’s approximately 100 litres of water used!
16. Line-dry your load of laundry rather than using a dryer. Washing clothes adds a surprising amount to your carbon footprint – but tumble drying them racks up even more emissions. For a typical 40°C wash nearly three-quarters of the carbon footprint comes from the drying rather than the washing. Tumble dryers generally use electricity to generate their heat. This is typically more than twice as carbon-intensive as creating heat from gas – for the simple reason that, in the case of electricity, most of the energy in the fuel gets wasted up the cooling tower of a power plant, with yet more getting lost in transmission to the home.
17. Adopt a house plant. Some of the best types of house plants for purifying air include Bamboo Palm, Devils Ivy and Peace Lilies. If you know you aren’t the best at keeping a plant alive, try a low maintenance one such as the Snake Plant.
18. Plant an indoor herb garden. Grab your favourite herbs such as parsley, mint, oregano or corriander. Plant it in pots near your kitchen near natural light if possible and keep a close eye on it.
19. Swap out three standard light bulbs and replace them with LED bulbs.
20. Replace your cleaning products with naturally derived, plant-based alternative. We have the perfect bundle to help you get a kick start on your ditch and switch! The Nature’s Home Essentials Collection contains a selection of plant-based products infused with pure essential oils to help tackle your everyday household chores with ease. Our careful blend of botanicals makes our cleaning formula free from harsh chemicals – it’s tough on dirt, but gentle on you!

So there you have it! 20 simple and eco-friendly changes and things you can do to create an impact and be the change you want to see. Create a day for it, make it an activity for the whole family to enjoy. Remember, even though some things may seem small, they have a BIG impact. Invite others to join you by sharing the challenge and sharing the hashtag #InvestInOurPlanet. Mother Nature will thank you for it.