This year’s Earth Day theme on April 22 is “Invest in our planet.”

Indeed, now is the moment to change it all — the business climate, the political climate and how we take action on climate. Now is the time for the unstoppable courage to preserve and protect our health, our families, our livelihood. We need to act boldly, innovate broadly, and implement equitably. It’s going to take all of us in a partnership for the planet.

It’s time to choose both a prosperous and sustainable future, and time to restore nature and build a healthy planet for our children and their children; time is short. We need to invest ourselves now.

Because we’re all in it together, we reached out to our readers and asked what changes they made to recycle, reduce and repurpose.  Here are a few reflections. Find more in the sustainability section (click here).

Creative solutions

Raising pigs: By far, the life change for us that helped reduce waste was raising pigs! Our wonderful porcine friends would gobble up any scrap of food we generated in the kitchen. Stale pretzels, crusts off bread, moldy leftovers, veggie scraps. While we try to compost anything we can, there was a lot of uneaten or spoiled food that would go to the landfill (our family has three young kids who are picky eaters). Having pigs was such a wonderful way to reduce that waste. Not to mention, they make fabulous rototillers and are so fun (and surprisingly easy) to take care of!

Business meets personal: During COVID isolation I got a sense that the supply chain would slow down around the world and began to collect more of the plastic containers which could be turned into funnels or feed boxes for our chickens or into other useful tools. We store our flour blends for the County Road Bakery in oversized plastic containers that originally housed coffee, and use them again and again (handles are molded into the container!)

More importantly, we began saving the feed bags that we get with our birdfeed supplies from the lovely Cochecton Mills. The bags are woven (probably made of polypropylene), and thus last forever.  We use them as an insulation and windbreak wall on our coops, and as collection bags for storage (they have a 50-pound capacity).

Scarcity creates a sense that we can re-use many of the items we typically throw away, and personally I’m glad for the eye-opening experience.

Personal preference meets brand: I have a small brand born out of the pandemic called Sustainably Slaying. I used clothing to make masks when the pandemic started, and that sent me on a mission. I’ve also been making purses and bags out of other peoples jeans that don’t fit; purses out of plastic, such as fake stained glass, window clings etc. I took the legs off a desk and made my son a table out of a discarded Aldi sign I had held onto for years.

Reducing

When writing by hand, I use a pencil instead of a pen whenever possible. I even address envelopes in pencil!

I shop as much as I can at the Callicoon Pantry, bringing in my own jars to be filled.

I carry my own silverware and let the server know, “no plasticware” when ordering takeout.

I wash plasticware and reuse, keeping a few pieces in my car.