Earth Day is an annual celebration that encourages people all across the world to celebrate the planet and be more environmentally friendly. Each year, over 1 billion people get involved, making it the largest civic observance in the world.
Earth Day was founded by Gaylord Nelson, then a US Senator from Wisconsin, in 1970 after he witnessed the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. Nelson realised that he could use the emerging public conscience of the environment to push the day into the national political agenda. The first Earth Day celebration saw 20 million Americans taking part and was followed by many major environmental laws being passed, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. By 1990, Earth Day was being celebrated on an international scale, with 200 million people in 141 countries raising environmental issues. Today, Earth Day is observed in over 190 countries and is widely referred to as the beginning of the modern environmental movement. The day has been supported by a number of celebrities, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson and Miley Cyrus, all of whom have done their bit to raise awareness.
There are lots of things you can do to celebrate Earth Day, including:
- Walk or cycle to work
- Use a reusable coffee cup
- Go paperless
- Grow your own fruit and vegetables
- Plant a tree
Here at Tops and Aspire, we have many sustainable practices in place that help protect our planet. We minimise our use of single-use plastics by not using straws, single-use nappies, etc in our settings, we plant and grow our own fruit and vegetables with the children in our nursery gardens, and we also have solar panels installed across all our buildings. Find out more about what sustainable practices we use here. We also achieved our B-Corp Certification and was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development.
