Don't just clean: let's Spruce!

Join The Spruce Initiative: a fun daily walk practice to save the environment and to spruce up any place on the planet within a 3 year period!

Do you ever notice that lift you get when you gaze at a beautiful sunset, walk in a pine forest after the rain or window shop in a city filled with holiday cheer?  Those are the magical moments that alight upon us unexpected that can change our lives forever.

The Spruce Initiative is an easy, free, fun way of cleaning up any city or community so that we can appreciate more of those magical moments.  I practice it myself everyday.  Everyday when I am out on my daily walk I pick up just one piece of rubbish and dispose of it appropriately (well sometimes I pick up more).

If you think about it: here in North America people always travel from one place where there is garbage disposal to another. For instance, you have garbage collection both at home and at work, and wherever there is public transport. So picking up one piece of rubbish while you are out and disposing of it appropriately takes no additional time out of your day.

Picking up rubbish gets to be fun after awhile. Sometimes instead of rubbish I find money, pieces of paper with useful information or some other article that might come in handy. For instance one day I found a Starbucks card for a free cup of coffee.

If everyone in picked up just one piece of rubbish everyday, it's my theory that within 3 years our city sidewalks would be dressed in holiday style every day of the year, and the beauty of our built and natural environments would shine through.

With a bit of luck here in Vancouver we might even make it by 2012!

Just think about it: while a community rubbish drive cleans the environment for that day only, The Spruce Initiative keeps the environment clean all the time! In addition it leaves you with a good feeling, knowing you have done something everyday to help the environment and to beautify your city, hometown or other special place. The result is a personal sense of pride and ownership.

The Spruce Initiative is fun, takes no time out of one's day, costs no money and could easily result in all of us appreciating the true natural beauty of our world.

The Spruce Initiative helps retain thinking so that people become part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

Do it yourself. Tell all your friends.

Practice The Spruce Initiative and celebrate Earth Day everyday!

Cheers!
Felicity ; ) 

Photo: Stanley Park from Ambleside, Vancouver, BC