Teach young children how to care for our planet! Instill these simple green living tips for you and your family to follow.

For parents, teaching respect for the earth shouldn’t be a once-a-year event. By showing young children how to care for the planet at an early age, you can instill a lifelong respect for the environment that ensures the world will be a better place for generations to come.

Following are ten simple ways your family can make every day Earth Day:

• 1. Recycle

This seems so obvious and yet so many of us still don’t do it. Recycling is easy to do and takes very little time. If you’re uncertain about how to recycle, follow this simple list of recycling do’s and don’ts:
Rinse containers (they don’t have to be spotless, just rinsed out).
Remove and discard lids (even plastic lids are not recyclable).
There’s no need to remove labels.
Discard broken glass (it contaminates the recycling process).
Keep newspapers dry and pack them in a brown grocery bag or wrap with natural twine.
Hazardous items such as motor oil, old paint, batteries, and computers should not be placed for garbage pickup.

• 2. Shop smart

Keep kids busy while shopping by showing them what the recycling logo looks like (a triangular-shaped chasing arrow) and then ask them to locate items on your shopping list made from recycled materials or packaged in recycled containers.

• 3. Practice what you preach

One of the best ways to get children to respect the environment is to set an example for them to emulate: don’t litter, volunteer to plant trees at a local park or clean up a nearby playground, don’t throw away items that could be recycled, turn off the lights when you leave a room, don’t let the tap run while brushing your teeth and most importantly, talk to your kids about how all of your actions impact our planet.

• 4. Donate unneeded clothes and toys

When the seasons change, encourage your children to go through clothing and pick out items they’ve outgrown or toys they no longer play with to donate to your church nursery, a non-profit organization, or children’s organizations. Remember, organizations don’t want broken toys or torn clothing so please mend or fix items first.

• 5. Drive smart

Carbon dioxide emissions are a primary cause of global warming, so make an effort to carpool with other families, drive environmentally-friendly vehicles, and walk or bike to destinations when possible. Your family will help the environment and get some great physical exercise too!

• 6. Reuse grocery bags

Plastic and brown paper bags are very durable and can be reused many times. Canvas bags are also great for shopping. Brown paper bags can hold newspapers to be recycled. Some stores have barrels to recycle plastic bags, while others, such as Big Bazzar, offer grocery items in exchange of plastic bags.

• 7. Compost

Composting reduces by half the volume of material a household sends to a landfill and it’s easy to do. Let your kids place food and yard scraps into a special compost bin at home. In a matter of weeks, the scraps will be converted into valuable fertilizer when you burn it.

• 8. Grow a garden

Use that compost fertilizer to plant a garden with your child. Children learn about the cycles of nature as they see their seedlings grow, and as an added bonus, they’re more apt to eat those vegetables they so carefully tended!

• 9. Clean up

Picking up other people’s trash isn’t high on anyone’s list of fun things to do, but with a little ingenuity, you can turn this much-needed community service into a pleasant family experience. Let your kids pick the area they’d like to clean up—a local park, a neighborhood park, or perhaps their school grounds. Have a contest to see who can pick up the most pieces of trash or see who finds the most unusual item. Do this service as a family and encourage other families to join you. Kids will bond amongst themselves and have lot of fun doing this whilst learning to keep the environment clean.

• 10. Think outside the garbage/recycling can

Your family’s junk could be some organization’s treasure! Libraries, daycares, preschools, and elementary schools are in constant need of “art and craft” materials such as egg cartons, unwanted CDs, empty milk jugs, bags, Styrofoam packing material, magazines and newspapers, empty paper towel roll tubes, fabric (old clothing), and much more.

Startling Stats about Green World

• Each of us generates on average 4.4 pounds of waste per day, per person.

• If every household in India reused a paper grocery bag for one shopping trip, approximately 60,000 trees would be saved.

• Recycling a four-foot stack of newspapers saves the equivalent of one 40-foot fir tree.

• Every glass bottle recycled saves enough energy to light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.

• Making cans from recycled aluminum saves 95 percent of the energy required to produce cans from virgin material.

• We throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire commercial airline fleet every few months.

• Recycling all of your home’s waste newsprint, cardboard, glass, and metal can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 850 pounds a year.

• One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year (According to the University of Colorado Recycling Services in Boulder and the Environmental Protection Agency).