articles

It's a Planet-Wide Mother's Day Party!

By Ellen DeFrancesco, Publisher of Macaroni Kid Long Beach-Oceanside-Rockville Centre, NY March 25, 2020

Earth Day is back! It’s the one day a year we celebrate the original “mother” of us all.  I’m sure your inboxes and news feeds are starting to fill up with articles about changing your light bulbs, eliminating plastic bags and reducing our carbon footprint. If you’re a "crunchy" mom like me then you’ve heard it all before. Here’s what bothers me, why does it have to be just one day?  Take Valentine’s Day for example, why do we get flowers and chocolates just one day a year?  I say every day should be Valentine’s Day and keep those flowers coming (maybe hold off on the daily chocolates, I don’t know if my hips could handle it). My point is, you shouldn’t have to dedicate a single day to showing love to your significant other or Mother Earth. I’m shaking things up a bit this year and giving you my TOP 3 outside-the-box ideas for you to practice on April 22nd and every day after.


  1. RECYCLE MARKERS: The Crayola ColorCycle Program gave me one of those WOW moments when I read about it and left me wondering how an eco-friendly mama like me had never heard about it before. On the Crayola website the company explains that they have banded together with K-12 schools across the United States to collect and repurpose used markers. They walk you through the simple, easy steps to setting up a collection station at your school for used markers. Last year, one of my daughter's teachers was heartbroken watching her kids throwing their used school supplies in the trash at the end of the year so this is a great way to reduce waste and encourage kids to rethink about where their stuff ends up.
  2. RECYCLE CLOTHES: One survey found that the average American will toss out 81 pounds of clothing each year and that amounts to 26 billion pounds of textiles and clothing ending up in landfills. Here's one way to decrease the amount of trash in landfills, reduce greenhouse gases, save natural resources and reduce toxins (cotton is one of the most pesticide-dependent crops in the world) AND earn money. thredUP is an online secondhand shopping website where you can purchase like new clothing and accessories from top brands at a fraction of the cost (I've even purchased clothes with the tags still on them so they weren't like new, they actually were NEW). You can buy clothes on this website and SELL the clothes you no longer wear. It's super easy to order a clean out bag from the website, fill it and mail it to the company at no cost. You can receive credit to use to buy clothes or cash out and simply earn money.
  3. RECYCLE BRAS: Yup, bras! How many bras do you own? Go look in your drawer, don't worry I'll wait. Now how many bras do you actually wear? You're not alone if you have a drawer overflowing with a bunch of bras you don't wear because either you bought the wrong size, your boobs changed and they no longer fit, they're not comfortable or you just don't like them. But you keep them because you have no idea what to do with them. Well you're not alone. Did you know you can recycle them? The Bra Recyclers mission is to minimize the amount of bras entering our landfills and donate them to women or girls in need. 

Let’s show that girl some love and make every day Earth Day.