Indie Ogden guide to earth day 2012

Clean up your neighborhood or your favorite park.  Bring friends, gloves and lots of trash bags. If you want to join a group: Local First Utah will be cleaning up the Ogden River Parkways Saturday 4/21 at 9 AM.  To participate, or to volunteer as a clean up area leader, call Ranee Johnson, 801-985-0158

Visit Weber County Solid Waste to learn how to dispose of large appliances, paint cans, yard waste, etc. during your spring cleaning. I see that they also accept “animals”. Let’s hope you don’t run across any dead animals while cleaning… eek.

Become a member of the Ogden Nature Center or Ogden Botanical Gardens. Both places offer perks for members

Dust off your bike and bring it down to the Ogden Bicycle Collective to learn how to get it rolling again.   Or if you have the money and are more the “hands-off type”, visit your local bike shop for a tune-up.   41% of all trips made in the United States are one mile or less.  Ride your bike instead of driving some of those short trips

If you realistically don’t ever plan on riding your bike, donate it to the Bike Collective so someone else can.  Then walk an errand instead!  Americans now walk the least of any industrialized nation in the world.  (Source: NPR)

Watch a documentary or just listen to a few podcasts  (60-second Earthis a good place to start).
Documentaries Available on “Netflix Instant Watch”:

Food Inc., No Impact Man, Blue Gold: World Water Wars (these are my favorites).
Also: The Human Experience, Fuel, Tapped, The Future of Food, American Experience: Earth Days, Frontline: The Spill, Heat, Poisoned Waters (PBS)
Other Documentaries to Rent:
An Inconvenient Truth, The Eleventh Hour

Volunteer at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. If you are already volunteering elsewhere, do you know what to do if you find injured wildlife?

Learn how to compost on Saturday at the Ogden Nature Center’s Earth Day Festival! Now is a great time to start a compost pile. It’s easy and it diverts food/yard waste from the landfill. The end result is “black gold” that will make your lawn or garden very rich. …with nutrients.

Pledge to stop using disposables. Buy a reusable coffee cup, water bottle and shopping bag, then bring your own! Green the World is a good place to find these products

This harmless-looking plant is an invasive weed that chokes Utah’s native grasses. Most animals will not eat it, the roots reach down about five feet and it’s seeds remain viable in the soil for 30 years, so it takes over giant stretches of land in our area. There is a flexible volunteer opportunity for individuals or groups to help the Ogden Nature Center keep “Dyer’s Woad” in check without resorting to the use of herbicides. Please email volunteer@ogdennaturecenter.com or call (801) 621-8595 so they can get you started.  Let’s pull up as much as we can before it goes to seed

Xeriscape your front yard to conserve water (save time and money too!)

Partner with friends, family or coworkers and “Adopt a Roadless Area” through the Utah Sierra Club or “Adopt a Trail” through Weber Pathways

Eat more veggies and fruits (less meat, dairy and prepackaged processed foods). Resolve to join a CSA before next spring starts. Shop at the farmer’s market or Carlos Produce more often and pay attention to the country of origin on food. Visit SlowFoodUtah for more local resources. Buy in bulk when possible. Shop second-hand and re-evaluate your normal purchases

Skip the Clorox and 409: 12 natural cleaning recipes.  How to make your own laundry detergent and hardwood floor cleaner

Set up a wild bird sanctuary in your backyard

**Shae transferred to Ogden from Minneapolis a couple years ago to work for a bike distributor. She has an Associates Degree in Vis Com. She loves the mountains and Ogden has the prettiest, most accessible mountains around! She loves to read, garden and spend a lot of time outside (usually with her dogs). She maintains “Ogden Volunteer Reserve” on Facebook to keep Ogdenites up to date on the needs of a wide range of non-profits