What is the best way we can celebrate Earth Day? Celebrations, planting trees and cleaning up rubbish are all a big part of this day. The environment seems to be on our minds more often but we are still needing to do more on a daily basis. It’s important to have one day where we all take notice.

Perhaps one of the best ways to appreciate the importance of caring for our environment is by taking some time during this day and paying attention to our own corner of the world.

Head Outside

So many of us go from our house to our car to the office to turn around and make the same trip home and may not have the time to really notice our surroundings or even spend any time outside. Can we really appreciate this planet we call home if we have so little connection with nature?

How about this? On Earth Day walk your neighborhood and enjoy spring in it’s full glory.

As you are walking pay attention. Is it garbage day? Just a weekly occurrence but just how much trash is on the curb for the houses or apartment buildings around you? Keep in mind that’s one weeks worth in one small section of the city multiplied by 52 weeks for however many years.

Perhaps it’s such a nice day that it has motivated everyone to do a little spring cleaning or yard work. So many of our outdoor tasks use water. It never seems like we use very much but as you look around do you see ways it could be used more wisely or maybe even a way a job could be done without it.

Do you live near water? For all the beauty that is usually found around bodies of water if we look more closely what do you see? Do you see garbage lying around? Has someone used it to dump junk or toxic stuff? Have Styrofoam cups and other kinds of plastic garbage floated in to shore?

A walk on a even a well maintained trail almost always turns up plastic water bottles or a plastic shopping bag stuck in a tree somewhere. We can’t escape it. City, suburb, country, no matter where we live we can see the effects of man and woman both good and bad on the world around us.

You get the idea. When we live in an area it becomes easy to overlook the problems. We become accustomed to doing things the same or seeing the same things everyday and sometimes we just don’t see them anymore. But with a fresh awareness you may look around and begin thinking how am I contributing to this? What can I do to start to improve things and then do something.

Right now finding the resources to help us make changes are plentiful. This Earth Day, by just bringing our awareness to problems within our own neighborhood we can begin to do our part in making sure our kids will be able to enjoy the wonder and beauty of this small planet.

It starts with us.

Promotional products are no doubt used on quite a regular and sometimes excessive basis in terms of their production, distribution and overall quantities. And naturally, most of these items are selected with one narrow-minded, business-driven goal in mind - gaining wide exposure to lift a business’s status higher, and their success, soaring. And this popular pursuit of gaining and continuing elevated statuses through promo products is the standard.

What’s not standardized is unconventionality; items selected and given at trade shows are usually pinpointed with a mundane mindset, unless unorthodox minds are dealing with selection processes. But, of all, one this is certain about selection considerations. When most individuals are selecting promotional items for a trade show, the last concern that comes to mind is the notion of saving the earth, of being eco-friendly, or oddly enough, being that envious color, green.

Green Horizons For Promotional Decisions

Promotional products are usually run-of-the-mill, both in their composition and existence, but are also detrimental to the environment. Most are not, as mentioned, in that “gone green status.” Green promotional products are not visually distinctive through actual color, yet are categorized as “green” based on the materials used in their overall compositions. Green promotional items are ones made of earth-friendly and environmentally-conscious materials, or are specifically products veering off course from standardized not-so-earth-considerate methods, such as items utilizing heavy paper and/or plastic ingredients.

Currently, there is quite a green movement in the corporate and business realm as environmental concerns have become much more pronounced and publicly declared. An awareness is spreading and companies are taking advantage of this simply to further push the urgency of being more concerned and active in mending our wounded and polluted earth.

Making Promotional Items Green, An Easy Task

Taking a promotional item from standard to eco-friendly is not troublesome or difficult. Actually, it’s much easier than one would think, especially since the green movement is in full swing. This said, there are many options of well-designed and eco-friendly products for trade show purposes.

Eco-Friendly Promotional Options

The best thing to do as a distributer of promo items at a trade show is to not only provide eco-friendly giveaways, but also spur an instilled sense of continued environmental care though the products themselves. Saving trees by not using excessive amounts of paper and using non-plastic items are basics to start with and can easily be accomplished through correct promo item selection.

To save trees and spur continued consciousness for avoiding overuse of paper, why not give away USB flash drives and non-disposable drinkware? USB drives will cut down on already discouraging amounts of printing and will make information not only environmentally accommodating, but also compactly mobile and convenient. Make carrying information limited to a space the size of a thumb, rather than a bulky portfolio.

And by providing non-paper or plastic based cups, mugs and the like will cut down on individuals continually using and then discarding wasted drinkware items. Coffee mugs and sport bottles -made of polycarbonate materials- are great types of permanent and long-life drinkware items that can be considered to imprint and prolong a green way of thinking and doing.