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World Environment Day (WED) is a yearly event held on June 5th to raise global awareness of the need to take positive environmental action. WED is run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and is the pinnacle of environmental activities undertaken all year round by UNEP and other organizations and individuals around the world. Being a part of the celebrations gives you an opportunity to share your ideas and activities for making our world cleaner, greener, and brighter.

[Edit]Steps

[Edit]Participating in World Environment Day Events

Visit the World Environment Day website. Go to worldenviromentday.global/en and spend some time browsing the information provided there to see what's of most interest to you. You can read stories and news about the environment and learn how to participate in events.
- You can also use the site to register an activity that you, your school, business, workplace, or your community group are doing for WED. The great thing about registering your activity is that you can inspire others who learn about what you're doing.
Find out what the WED environmental theme is for the year. For example, in 2017, the theme was "Connecting People to Nature." This theme encourages people to spend time in nature and appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the natural world. It also focuses on protecting the environment from harm.
- Also check out which country is the host country for WED for the year. For example, in 2017, Canada was the host country for WED. If you live in the host country, expect extra exciting activities to be planned!
Check out the activities that are already planned in your area. You might like to join in what has been planned, or even help out if you're early enough to sign up as a volunteer for the event. Check the WED website and do an internet search for WED events near you.
Add a photo or video to the nature album to share your favorite spot. The WED website is working to create the largest nature album in the world. Take a photograph or video of your favorite site in nature and post it to the album. For example, take a photo of your favorite lake or mountain range, create a video showcasing a lightning storm, or make a time-lapse video of cool clouds.^[1]
Promote World Environment Day on social media. Use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites to promote WED. Share events in your area, quote environmental facts, add photos taken in nature, or give tips on living sustainably. Either way, spread the word to your friends, family, and followers that it is World Environment Day!

[Edit]Hosting Your Own World Environment Day Event

Collect recyclable items to reduce waste. Post signs around the community letting people know they can drop off materials to be recycled at your home or chosen location. Then, take the items to a place where they can be recycled. This will be especially helpful if you collect items that cannot be recycled at the local recycling center, such as electronics, batteries, and paint cans.^[2]
Host a film festival to highlight eco-issues. You could organize a film festival in your community focused on ecological issues. Watch An Inconvenient Truth, The Day After Tomorrow, Soylent Green, or Erin Brockovich. If children are attending, consider adding WALL-E or FernGully: The Last Rainforest.^[3]
- If you plan this in advance, you could add your city to the Wild & Scenic Film Festival Tour.^[4]
Organize an arts and crafts exhibition that focuses on sustainability. This shows participants that it is important to consider where your products come from and how they are made in order to leave a smaller footprint on the environment. Invite local artists and crafters who make their products sustainably.
- For example, choose artists who use recycled materials in their projects, or knitters who use eco-friendly yarns to create clothing and other items.
Set up a poetry reading to hear others' opinions on the environment. You could organize a poetry reading at a local coffee shop or bookstore to create a platform for people to share their opinions, worries, and hopes about the environment. An event like this also helps connect people through a love of nature. Choose poets or poems that focus on environmental issues, such as eco-poetry.
- You may also want to include dramatic readings or performances as well.
- You can choose to read poems like "Flood" by Pablo Neruda or excerpts from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.^[5]
Plan a concert to raise money for an eco charity. This is a fun way to get people together for a good cause. Invite local musicians to play music in an outdoor venue. You could even find musicians who use recycled materials for their instruments, or musicians whose music focuses on nature or environmental issues.
- You could charge an entry fee and donate the money to an environmental cause, such as saving endangered species. Alternatively, you could leave a donation box out so that people can donate money.
- If you don't want to charge an entry fee, you might require that people bring bottles to recycle or participate in a neighborhood clean-up if they want to see the concert.
- You could play recordings or have bands cover songs like "Mother Nature's Son" by the Beatles, or John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change."
Plant trees to increase oxygen in the air. Trees are great for the environment, as they turn carbon dioxide into oxygen. Gather a group of people together and arrange to plant trees in your community. Get permission before planting in public places such as parks, or choose to plant trees in your own or your neighbors' or friends' yards.
Organize a neighborhood cleanup to beautify your community. Invite your neighbors to help clean up the area in which you all live. This is a great activity to do with children. Pick up trash, pull weeds, or even do minor repairs to fences or houses in the area.^[6]
Plan a nature scavenger hunt to connect with the world around you. Invite adults and children from your neighborhood to participate in a nature scavenger hunt. Create a list of items to find, such as: a yellow flower, a green leaf, a ladybug, a feather, a smooth rock, a blade of grass, a puffy cloud, something blue, etc. Consider handing out prizes to the winners, like eco-friendly tote bags.^[7]
Raise awareness in your community. Set up a booth outside the local library or grocery store, after obtaining permission. Speak to people about environmental issues or hand out brochures or information kits. This can be a great way to educate others about important environmental subjects.

[Edit]Doing Things That Benefit the Environment

Adopt an eco-friendly, sustainable lifestyle. Do an inventory of your energy usage, your consuming habits, and your reliance on unsustainable products and make a list of ways you intend to curb your unsustainable activities and habits and replace them with sustainable ones. Set yourself a timeline to meet, with harder changes coming at the end of the timeline.
- For instance, consider eating meat-free meals twice a week. You could also make a point of turning off lights and electronics when not in use. Another idea is to commit yourself to walking to work or the market as often as possible.
Choose to purchase sustainable, organic, or Fair Trade goods. Read the labels of origin and manufacture of your goods, and decide if you can make better choices. Find out if your products are certified as sustainable, organic, locally made, or Fair Trade. There are lots of things a label can tell you if you choose to read it.
- Sustainable products include those that are sustainably obtained, for example, all forest products with the FSC logo are logged using sustainable forestry practices.
- Organic products, such as cotton clothing, cause much less environmental damage than non-organic methods, such as conventional cotton-growing practices.
- Locally made products decrease the impact on the environment because they travel less miles, which means less emissions, to make it to the consumer.
- Fair Trade products are ethically produced, and take into account the native people as well as the environmental resources, in the areas they are produced.
- If you can't find a label, email or post a message on Facebook to the company, retailer, or manufacturer responsible for the product. Facebook is a great method because lots of other people will check out your question and be waiting for the answer!
Take public transportation to reduce your environmental impact. Make a choice to use public transportation more often than you do already to cut back on the amount of noxious fumes introduced into the environment. Carpooling is also a great way to reduce emissions. You can also ride your bicycle or walk to close destinations.
Get involved in a conservation, restoration, or eco-community project. Today is a great day to sign up and get involved with people who are doing rather than talking or reading. Sign up to help restore an old building in town, or join a local water conservation group.
Plan your garden space to include edible items. If you have a yard or garden that sits empty, make a plan to plant fruits, veggies, and herbs for personal use, or even bee-friendly flowers. Growing your own food helps reduce strain on the environment. Things you can do that will make the most of your garden include:
- Compost your scraps. Use this compost to boost the garden's production.
- Create a part of it that is edible, and plant seasonal crops. For those of you with merely a balcony or a tiny plot, you can still grow food such as a potato in a bag and small sprout gardens in your windowsill. You could also join a community gardening project.
- Grow herbs and spices that add flavor to your food, look beautiful in the garden, and that also have medicinal, beauty, healing, spiritual, or other uses. Borrow a book from the library to learn more about herb and spice use. These plants don't need much space, and they can be grown on a windowsill or balcony.
- Encourage beneficial and friendly wildlife to your garden through careful planting and shelter creation.
- Learn to make your own garden sprays using items that are toxic to bugs and mildew but not to people and pets!
Refuse, reduce, reuse, and recycle. Refuse to buy unsustainable products, reduce your consumption, reuse items and materials around your home, and recycle everything you can. All that clutter has to go somewhere, so make a choice not to bring in into the house to begin with and if it has to leave, make good choices about where it's going to end up!^[8]
- Think about borrowing, sharing, donating, time-sharing, etc., instead of buying for keeps. Or pass it on after you've read/used/watched/worn/enjoyed it.