I’d like to thank my mate C for emailing me this lovely badge today. It kind of sums up exactly how I’m feeling. Anyhoo, so because it’s Earth Day, and because Thrifty just revisited some of his favourite posts, I’d like to republish my original Earth Day post for your delectation. That, and I can’t think of anything funny.
Okay, so it’s Earth Day today and according to some really dodgy ‘family’ website I found which had articles on ‘Making Mealtimes Fun’ (ban your children from the table?) and ‘Make Your Next Family Camping Trip a Success’ (cancel it and book a hotel instead?), it’s a ‘special day to learn about our planet and how to take care of it’. So in the spirit of Earth Day, here are ten things that we all should teach our children so that we’re doing our bit to take care of our own Mother Earth:
- Energy is precious. This means that having three televisions on in three different rooms, plus the computer and every light in the entire house is not good karma, especially when you’re in the bath playing your Gameboy.
- Conserve our precious water. Like when you’re cleaning your teeth and you wander back into one of the rooms where the televisions are blaring to stare goggle-eyed at the screen, you really should turn the tap off first.
- Showers and baths need to be small to use less water. Thirty-minute showers where you sing the whole of Green Day’s repertoire and make your hair into several different mohicans with shampoo whilst trying to emulate Billy-Jo are just not cricket.
- Wearing an item of clothing for ten minutes, then putting it in the dirty clothes basket because you ‘fancy having shorts on now’, doesn’t mean it’s dirty and needs to be washed, nor is bunging it in there an acceptable alternative to folding it and replacing it in the drawer.
- Aim to choose products that are not over-packaged. Easter is therefore cancelled next year because Easter Eggs have five different plastic and cardboard layers before you get through to the ounce of chocolate in the middle.
- Learn to recycle. By the way, recycling isn’t where you put the empty orange juice carton back in the fridge so that when Mum goes shopping she doesn’t buy any as she doesn’t think we need it.
- Daddies need help learning about recycling. This means that putting everything in the kitchen bin so Mummy has to get in there and rescue all the tins and bottles from the stinky black depths leads to the withdrawal of certain privileges. You know the ones I mean.
- Learn to re-use. Yoghurt pots make good containers for growing seeds. You could grow herbs on your windowsill so Mummy could cook with them and then you could spend ages picking all the green bits out of your food.
- Learn more about energy consumption. Some ‘gas guzzling’ cars are really bad for the planet. Obviously these do not include the new Land Rover Discovery 3 TDV6 HSE in Lugano Teal that Mummy is currently trying to persuade Daddy to buy her.
- And finally, one for the Mummies: tumble-drying our clothes in the middle of summer so that the entire kitchen becomes sauna-like is not an acceptable alternative to hanging clothes out. Even if, frankly, you just can’t be arsed.
That’s it, then. Off you go and save the planet.
Comment by Grandma — April 22, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 22, 2008 @ 11:00 am
I am silencing my sobriety by reminding myself what a rarity a long hot bubbly bath has become.
Then I go and put on the tumble drier.
I’m sure Sir Sprout will start contributing as he grows. He’s pretty anal already: 19-month old who wipes the dinner table after he’s eaten and loves tidy-up - our future is bright!
Comment by Foreigner — April 22, 2008 @ 11:54 am
I recycle, I turn things off when I don’t need them, we buy local and organic things etc
But…
I just can not and will not do without my tumble dryer.
However I have recently been forced into it as it has been broken down for months and my landlady has inconveniently decided to pop out a baby so is understandably far to busy to arrange for it to be fixed.
So I should get extra brownie points for now…
Happy Earth Day
(until the tumble dryers fixed)
Comment by Emily — April 22, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
Comment by Wee Jen — April 22, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
Em: Ah yes, I’m all for buying local. I refused to buy raspberries the other day that had been flown in from Kenya, much to #1’s disgust. Oh yes, I love my tumble dryer too. I need a washing line, that might tempt me to do less drying I guess? x
Wee One: English Towers is supposed to be ‘eco friendly’ - we have extra thick insulation and some new fangled bio flow sewage system, but I’d love to go the whole hog with solar panels etc. I draw the line at recycling my bathwater though!
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 22, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
YES - Recyle, avoid packaging … take your own bag to the supermarket, turn off lights, replace bulbs, walk places, use a bike, Solar, seriously, I could write my own website in the mistakes we are making ……
For once, not a single joke or humour in my reply …
Comment by Moon — April 22, 2008 @ 4:21 pm
Put not-quite-enough diesel in the car and watch as your Other Half produces enough heat by synergy to boil ten kettles!!
Go on, Divvy Bird…
Tell ‘em… Or I will!!
Mwahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
Comment by Jennynib — April 22, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
SHUT!!!
UP!!!!
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 22, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
FESS!!!
UP!!!
Comment by Jennynib — April 22, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 22, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Make with the goods or I’ll embellish.
God! How I love to embellish…
Comment by Jennynib — April 22, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 23, 2008 @ 10:17 am
What she MEANT to say was that she SUSPECTED that she might run out, kept schtumm in case it was so. It was so.
Cue screaming and tears! Har-de-dar!
This is funny because of the phone call I made to her in the throes of a similar crisis, except the ranting lunatic was of the Father-In-Law…
I believe her EXACT words were “Poor Pet! Didn’t you notice the red blinking thingumy?”
Hmmmmmmmm??
Comment by Jennynib — April 23, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Comment by Hubby — April 23, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
Hubs: Oy. That’s your conjugals gone for a month. Traitor.
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 23, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
Is that manspeak for “I lost the plot like a psychopath”!!!
Oho, you’ll get the rub of this one when I see you next!
Solidaridy among divvy birds Missus!
Comment by Jennynib — April 23, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Seriously, yes, I agree. I always take bags to the supermarket and our local council has provided us with no less than four bins - one black for non-recyclable stuff, one brown for garden waste, and two green for anything recyclable (except, bizarrely, aluminium foil). We have two greens because we found we didn’t have enough room in one and they gave us a second! The system works well, except for the fact that the black bins are only emptied once a fortnight. Um … things get a bit stinky in summer, quite frankly.
Comment by Jay — April 24, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Jay: That sounds like a good system though. Our recycling is limited to one green bin that takes cans, plastic bottles and cardboard - we have to take our glass to the bottle bank and sort out our garden waste ourselves.
Comment by englishmuminireland — April 24, 2008 @ 12:56 pm