Celebrate Earth Day on a Dirtbag Budget Why does Earth Day Matter?

There are too many Hallmark Holidays. Holidays that we celebrate simply for the sake of getting together and having a good time. It’s important to spend time honoring the ones we love with dates like Valentine’s, Mother’s Day & Father’s day. A dirtbag can generally ignore the majority of consumer driven holidays. It’s a rare occasion for the dirtbags of the world to throw their weight behind a holiday. However, Earth Day is a time honored celebration that is rooted in the anti-corporate, anti-war movement. Earth Day has an undeniably critical goal.

Earth Day’s mission is, “to diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide.”

Since 1970, millions of people have activated and engaged their local communities; for decades, we have come together to accelerate the environmental movement. We must continue holding organizations responsible for making a positive impact. Across the globe, people are beginning to leverage their buying power in order to make Big Business change their outdated ways. The best way to drive change is to tank the bottom line.

We all have a small part to play in order to make a difference. This is a holiday where we can stand hand in hand with our fellow dirtbags. The best news is that joining the environmental movement can cost less than a tacky card and a latte. Perfect for us that would rather be outside.

Earth Day: A Brief History

When we started this blog, the most logical place to start was checking out the EarthDay.org website. First, bravo Earth Day team. Clean website, well done. Second,most of the following information is my paraphrasing the very thoughtful and complete history on their site. Feel free to go check out their article for more information.

The transcendentalist authors pioneered the wild frontier back in the late 19th century. Authors like John Muir, Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson helped to bring public attention to the value of wilderness. They planted the seeds that would grow into a movement 100 years later. These seeds blossomed again with Rachel Carson’s famous book, Silent Spring, published in 1962. JFK was President and we were just about to meet the Beatles. Rachel Carson was calling people to act, “responsibly, carefully and as stewards of the of Earth”.

‘We haven’t read it, but it looks like you can get an ebook version for $2.00! That’s your first dirtbag tip, get the ebook and book club it, with us. :)’ 

Eight years later, two senators (Gaylord Nelson & Pete McClosky) came together for a bipartisan initiative to get students involved and activated on environmental issues. After choosing April 22 as the date, their community rallied a whopping 20 million people to show up at their local parks and recreation areas in support. That was 10% of the population of the US! This unbelievable turn out was the kick in the ass the government needed to create the Environmental Protection Agency (1970) and all subsequent legislations.

In 1990, Earth Day went global. They got 200 million people behind their movement in 141
countries. This organization is truly an international institution that leaves the world a better place that has sustained meaningful growth over the decades.

This is a really succinct version of the current Earth Day organization. - “Today, Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and create global, national and local policy changes.”

Why Rerouted Cares about Earth Day

Fundamentally, the Rerouted mission is derivative of the Earth Day mission. Every piece of gear we save from the landfill slows the process and protects resources. All gear collecting dust is a waste of resources. Earth Day is our favorite holiday. It's an exact alignment. It puts a smile on our face to celebrate this particular day. It’s an especially friendly holiday for all dirtbags. A dirtbags Earth Day can be quite rewarding, and potentially, the continuation of many things we’re already doing. It would be a shame to break 50 years of celebrating this day with our family, friends and neighbors. Check out our list of ways to honor Earth Day as a dirtbag on a budget.

Ways to honor the Earth Day tradition spending less than $10 dollars

Get Outside!

First things first, be outside. Find a way to get out and go play. Do whatever it takes. Enjoy the nature that exists today. This is the most important rule of this day. Choose the fresh air and current weather.

Need a couple of quick, off-the-cuff, no plan needed suggestions completely?

• Shun your vehicles - choose any form of alternate travel, bike preferred.
• Run an errand - and I literally mean RUN an errand. Probably not laundry…
• Save a flower, walk around where you’re sleeping and find a flower at risk
• Quick trash clean up - pick up 10 pieces of trash today

Feeling a bit frisky, we know you can get flower seeds at your local hardware store for a dollar. Go plant some flowers. Do it all by foot. Spend an afternoon leaving flowers as markers of a day well sauntered.

If you are reading this with some time to prepare, then you could plan ahead with a friend and take any animals on a hike. To really pay tribute to Mother Nature, be sure to take a trash bag so you can stop up and pick up trash on the way. Better yet, bring two friends. The more the merrier.

Trapped Indoors Today?

We work at a tech company, we realize that there are just some days where it feels like you can hardly escape the virtual world to take out the trash. Or sometimes weather literally traps you indoors (or invans). Sometimes it’s hailing golf ball sized death flakes. There are a few tricks we can suggest to do due diligence to the wilderness if you can’t sneak out for an hour.

• You can calculate your carbon footprint here. Simply taking the test makes you seriously consider the impact we have day to day. Think about anything that you may change about your behavior to have a lesser impact.
• Watch a David Attenborough documentary. Any of them are good. You know them, you love them. There are literally 100’s of these things. The dude has a brand. We know dirtbags have Netflix. Ending Earth Day with some classic Planet Earth is the perfect nightcap.

Create some upcycled crafts.There are tons of ideas. If you come up with some good ones, let us know. :) Seriously though, make flower planters out of ski boots, use those retired ropes as dog leashes (a couple knots make a leash, no assembly required), fit your old outdoor clothes for your doggos. Have fun. Be creative. Buy nothing.

Vegan Daily Dirtbag Diet

Earth Day seems to thematically choose to eat a simple, plant based diet. The word vegan can be scary to most, however, I’d say the majority of true dirtbags we’ve known inadvertently eat vegan. Because it’s fundamentally cheaper & doesn’t require refrigeration. Below, is exactly the diet of our CEO, Chap Grubb, from his days of being a dirtbag climber. Super cheap, super easy. It’s a way to spend less time cooking and more time playing. Honestly, we’re not going to give instructions. If you don’t know how to cook these items based on the titles - get your shit together.

• Breakfast - Oatmeal with Brown Sugar & Peanut Butter
• Snack - Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich
• Lunch - Beans, Rice & Potato burrito
• Snack - PB&J Sandwich (Trail Mix)
• Dinner - Olive Oil, Pasta & Veggies
• Desert - Oreos (we give into Nabisco every now and then)

Editor’s note: vegans that are anti-honey are crazy. The bees need all the help they can get. We at Rerouted are supporters of the Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwich. It's most clutch. Check out this as a potential cool project - beekeepers needed.

Just Say No

Setting the tone for the rest of the year. There are couple of things that we think should be deliberately reduced in our daily lives. Today is a day to go to the extreme. See what it would be like to go without the abundance of resources we currently live with. Below are a couple suggestions of some extreme ways a dirtbag may up their game.

• Refuse to use electricity all day. That means no lights, no chargers.
• Refuse any non reusable materials. Be strict. Maybe just stay in?
• Refuse anything but local products.
• Refuse to create refuse. As good as the word play is, we challenge you to not create any trash for the day.

Official Business

Let’s get down to business. This is the hard stuff. Still very free. Just.. more work to get our dirtbag butts up and out of play mode and into work mode. We have a handful of suggestions for ways to level up your Earth Day celebration and become a part of the community.

• Volunteer with a local nonprofit organization in their Earth Day efforts. Many organizations host trail building and other maintenance initiatives in honor of the big day. Do some research and track one down near you. You may even get lunch out of the deal.
• Join an official Earth Day Clean Up near you. For more information, check out their site here
• Evaluate your consumption habits, see if there are decisions you can make that shift your behavior to be more local, or at least support organizations that are truly behind the environmental initiatives. This can be hard to decide. It’s an ongoing process.

Step up and host an event, this blog is coming out too late for you to pull something together on the date itself. The best part about Earth Day, is that every day should be Earth Day. Hosting an event can take a bunch of work, but it’s individual organizers that can make the biggest impact. A favorite phrase we use at team meetings is - “the best time to plant a tree is twenty years agos, the second best time to plant a tree? Today!”. Don’t wait until next year. If you are motivated, get after it. Waive the Earth Day banner and make an impact for your local community. If you want to do this, reach out to our team, we’d love to support you if we can. :)

Buy & Sell Used Gear ;)

We’re contractually obligated to throw in a bit about how used gear plays into the fold here. It’s a shameless plug, we know. It’s hard to dispute that this all makes sense. Our goal is to save gear and help make second hand gear people’s first choice. And our reason for building Rerouted is because we want everyone to be able to create their own wilderness advocates. Ultimately, these advocates help accelerate access, education and sustainability for future generations of wilderness adventures. We are proud of the work we do.

The used gear industry (yes, we know we’re biased) is a great way to serve Mother Nature on her day. The cycle of used outdoor gear promotes all aspects we mentioned above. It keeps gear out of the landfill, we protect our resources and both buyers and sellers can reduce their carbon footprint.

Want to know more about what we’re building - check out our website!

Our Promise

There are countless ways to pay respect to Earth Day. For all of us dirtbags out there with empty wallets and love of the wild, Earth Day is our chance to celebrate. The above options all offer a nearly free strategy to pay our dues. We are gifted so much, these things are the least we can do for nature that provides us with so much tranquility.

We have to promise to make the right choices when no one is looking. We promise to pick up the trash on our regular walks. We promise to bring a trash bag on our next adventure. We promise to do the little things because the little things all add up. It’s key to choose goals that are realistic. We won’t change everything all at once. We promise to find bit sized improvements to make to honor Earth on a daily basis.

In the United States, there is a fifty year tradition of honoring Earth Day. Wilderness is in our nature. We have already done so much damage. Choose this year to start Earth Year. Conservation is imperative. We’re doing it to see the children play in the forest. To watch them climb rocks. Tag us on social media with your rad Earth Day celebrations. Show us how you get down and dirty with Mother Earth.