Happy Earth Day

Nature has always inspired and healed me. 

When I saw the loads of messages for Earth Day (Friday, April 22) on Thursday evening on social media platforms, I decided how I can contribute: Potty train my 2-year-old.

I never really focused on it, despite my mom’s constant reminders since before my LO turned one. But this is motivating enough that one year of one child using disposable diapers uses two full grown trees, not to mention they take 250-500 years to decompose (as mentioned in the Oh Crap Potty Training book by Jamie Glowacki). It is sad that I was risking Environment and the landfill space in addition to my child’s dignity prolonging diapers because I don’t care or I am not ready. Potty Training 101 (although I missed it the workshop) follow-up email from Stratford schools was really timely and helped a lot.

In addition to avoiding single use plastic, Couple of other things how I helped in recent times.

• Avoid single use masks as much as I can
• Turn off facade lights to avoid light Pollution: On our recent trip to Bryce Canyon NP, one of the exhibits in the visitor center caught my eye, how the millions of lights at night are obscuring night skies and stars, in addition to wasted energy, greenhouse gases and money.

There is so much buzz on sustainability these days, which is very nice if it helps bring us back to our roots. I believe it comes naturally when we go back to basics in kitchens and staying closer to Nature, imparting common sense in every way of life and not going through the fads. Thanks to Rujuta Diwekar (anyone who knows me know my outright love for her)  for the guidance on this subject.

As a happy camper, living right on the bay a mile from camping (the Dumbarton Quarry campground by the bay) remind me of my love and duty towards Nature every day.