Since 1970, Earth Day has fallen on April 22nd each year. The Earth Day movement led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.
Although these were large steps in environmental protection, there is still plenty of work to be done to reduce wastefulness and encourage alternate energy and consumption. Today, the most successful plans to raise awareness about the environment help to change people’s habits all year 
long.
It’s imperative for businesses to embrace sustainability and eco-friendliness into their brand to survive the new generation of buyers and employees. This event has a lot of promotional potential!
Here are some promotional ideas that may help you and your customers get more involved with Earth Day.
Encourage your customers to ditch the single use plastic water bottles and give employees branded reusable water bottles!
Here are some water bottle facts:
- Making bottles to meet America’s demand for bottled water uses more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 1.3 million cars for a year. And that’s not even including the oil used for transportation.
- The energy we waste using bottled water would be enough to power 190,000 homes.
- Last year, the average American used 167 disposable water bottles, but only recycled 38.
- Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. However, the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles – more than $1 billion worth of plastic – are wasted each year.
Search re-usable drinkware here.
A growing trend in many cities and counties are the banning of plastic grocery bags. Reusable bags are a walking billboard for your brand. Why not get two benefits for one use? Be Green. Promote your brand.
Plastic bag facts:
- Only 1-3% of plastic bags are recycled worldwide.
- Industry figures show 90% of all grocery bags are plastic.
- Plastic bags are made of polyethylene which is a petroleum product. Production contributes to air pollution and energy consumption.
- It takes 1,000 years for polyethylene bags to break down.
- The amount of petroleum used to make 1 plastic bag would drive a car about 36 yards.
- Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade – breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways. They then enter the food web when animals accidently ingest them.
There are a lot of eco-friendly products available these days. Now is a great time contact us to discuss recycled promotional products that conserve our natural resources and deliver a powerful message.
By Guest author: Rachel Manthey