On April 22,1970, 34 years ago today, a Wisconsin senator, Gaylord Nelson, proudly debuted his personal creation — Earth Day.
Nelson looked at Congress and the media and decided that neither showed enough concern for our only home planet. Today, millions still are holding onto his creation.
Last Sunday, Baton Rouge Earth Day Inc. orchestrated a festival downtown for thousands of people to listen to music, make crafts such as jewelry and birdhouses out of recycled materials, including old computer parts and gaskets, and learn about how they can help the environment.
But according to BRED Inc. President Jane Thomas, Earth Day is more than a day of celebration — it is a refresher course on the environment and what people need to do year-round.
Thomas said that like most cities, Baton Rouge struggles with landfill overloads, ozone protection, clean waterways, and roadside litter.
“This concept of littering is new. We didn’t always have materials that would last forever,” Thomas said.
She said that since it is not in our core laws and religions, we aren’t as ingrained to fight it as we are other negatives in society.
“We’ve taken strides to fix it, but there’s still work to be done,” said Susan Hamilton, East Baton Rouge Parish director of recycling. “We have a unique environment and we have opportunities to preserve it.”
Thomas suggests that since everyone has an equal hand in polluting, we all have an equal hand in cleaning it up.
She suggests that little ways of helping can consist of simple recycling, carpooling or riding a bike when you can, buying efficient vehicles if possible, keeping the thermostat reasonable or even participating in annual clean-up drives.
What most people don’t know is that product packaging and sewer runoff are major forms of pollution, said Thomas.
“It doesn’t occur to [people] that these triple-packaged products don’t have to be that way,” she said. “They should buy recyclable materials.”
On the University’s campus, The Student Environmental Action Coalition has taken strides to help the environment.
SEAC volunteers and Landscape Services provided 2,300 paper recycling boxes on campus and 25 recycling bins for glass and plastic bottles and aluminum cans to keep the campus beautiful.
Thomas said pollution is not limited just to the individual. Entire corporations and industries also contribute.
“We evolved and developed a lot of chemicals that we didn’t realize would have long-term effects,” she said. “So much happened so fast we didn’t realize what we were dealing with. We’re still discovering things that are dangerous.”
Today, companies such as ExxonMobil, Georgia Pacific, International Paper, and many others have to adhere to guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the past, corporations have been blamed for the pollution in local rivers, lakes and fields. But Thomas pointed out that those corporations hold residency in the same areas they pollute. They are concerned and want to help.
The festival on Saturday had 29 sponsors, many of which are manufacturing corporations.
Hamilton added that these corporations have action programs that promote education.
“I don’t think you ever clean [pollution] up. As we continue to live we continue to pollute,” Thomas said. “It’s an ongoing battle.”
To become involved in SEAC, contact Jeff Landrum at [email protected].
If you would like to volunteer with Baton Rouge Earth Day Inc., go to www.earthdaybr.org.