GET INVOLVED WITH EARTH DAY 2023
22 April, 2023
Have a rubbish time together!
The theme of this year’s Earth Day is ‘invest in our planet’. At some point in April, in the run-up to Earth Day on Saturday 22 April, could you inspire your group to raise funds to twin some bins!
Here are some ideas for how you could mark Earth Day as a group!
– A ‘green’ bake sale! Use our eco recipes booklet as inspiration for a Big Bin Bake Sale!
– Go car-free for a week! Challenge your group to swap fuel for footsteps and ask everyone within a one-mile radius to consider walking to the group meeting between 17-21 April – with all the money that everyone saves on fuel going towards a £45 bin twin!
– Spin for the Bin! Split your group into two teams and see who can complete a 90-mile cycling challenge first between 17-22 April with the aim of raising £90 for two Bin Twins!
– Going, going green! Ask everyone to pay £2 to come dressed in green – either by wearing items from their wardrobe or as a result of raiding local charity shops! Maybe have a competition to reward the Worst Dressed Person with a prize!
If you make a website donation between 17-22 April, the amount will go towards our Earth Day twinning totaliser that will be on our website all the way to midnight on Saturday, 22 April
Spin for the Bin!
Split your group into two teams and see who can complete a 90-mile cycling challenge first between 17-22 April with the aim of raising £90 for two Bin Twins!
Set up a JustGiving page for your Spin for the Bin challenge and start fundraising.
Bake for Bins!
Everything we eat has a carbon footprint. CO2 emissions from food make up around one-quarter of all the world’s emissions – as greenhouse gas emissions are produced by growing, rearing, farming, processing, transporting, storing, cooking, and then wasting, food.
– Use our eco recipes booklet as inspiration for a Big Bin Bake Sale (or a Guess The Weight of the Orange Peel Cake competition)!
Going, going, green!
Fast fashion is an environmental disaster. The clothing industry produces 150 billion garments a year and 87% (40 million tons) end up in landfill. The average garment may be worn as few as 10 times, and only 1% of all discarded clothing is actually recycled.
Ask everyone in your group to pay £2 to come dressed head-to-toe in green clothing from their wardrobe – or their local charity shops. Maybe have a competition and reward the Worst Dressed Person with a prize!
If you want an extra Fashion Fast fundraiser, you could ask everyone to bring in clothes they’ve not worn for six months and sell off pre-loved clothing for £2 each.
Swap fuel for footsteps
Encourage all your group members who live near to where you gather to come to the meeting either on foot, or by bike – with everyone donating the money that they would have spent on fuel.
You could use a JustGiving page to collect everyone’s donations and then convert the funds into Bin Twins!
Why Earth Day is so important
Country spotlight: Democratic Republic of Congo
In December 2022, more than 100 people were killed in landslides and floods in DRC’s capital city of Kinshasa. They were the worst floods in years, and evidence of why Kinshasa’s plastic problem is deadly.
With no formal plastic waste collection in Kinshasa, people who live close to the river often throw their waste into it. The plastic stops the river from draining properly. In December 2022, some places saw two metres of flood water, filled with waste, reach up to people’s roofs.
Bin Twinning’s DRC partner runs a hub where waste pickers are paid by the kilo for plastic bags and bottles. This plastic is then sent to a factory where it is melted down and mixed with sand to become eco paving bricks.
‘Thanks to this work, we can send our children to school and they have food to eat. We can afford to go to hospital if we are sick. Some of us have even built houses,’ says François, the manager of a waste collection point.
Before mum-of-four Jeanne got a job in the brick-making factory, she was struggling to earn enough to feed her children once a day. Now, life is still difficult, but she can at least afford three meals a day, and her children go to school. And, she’s proud to have a job that is helping the local environment.
‘Here in Kinshasa, the waste is a big problem because people throw it wherever they want. With this job, we raise awareness about the flooding problems that are caused by plastic blocking the river. And we transform the plastic into useful things. It no longer brings disease but makes life better.’
Click to watch Jeanne tell the story of Bin Twinning’s work in Kinshasa, DRC.
Download your Earth Day Kit