Celebrate Earth Day This Weekend

Sunday marks the 43rd Earth Day, and folks at the Department of Ecology encourage you to celebrate. There are plenty of simple ways you can show you care about our environment this weekend and also throughout the year:

• Find an Earth Day event near you and participate
• Take the Shrink Your Carbon Footprint Pledge
• Participate in our Spills Aren’t Slick photo campaign
• Follow @EcologyWA on Twitter!
• Have your voice heard. See our Public Involvement Portal to find out how.
•  “Like us” on one or all of our Facebook pages to learn about how you can
  protect our environment. These include: 

• EcologyWA
• Ecology’s Hanford Education and Outreach
• Washington State Spills
• Washington Waters – Ours to Protect
• Washington Beach Program

Here at Ecology it is our job, along with other natural resource agencies, to ensure that Washington’s environment is clean, healthy, and managed wisely. This is important for the obvious reasons -- that wildlife and people need access to clean food, water, shelter, and space.

Less obvious but also important is that we know a clean environment and healthy economy go hand in hand. We know that when we protect our environment, we also protect human health, communities and jobs in our state. In fact, more than one-third of Washington’s economy is directly supported by natural resources activities.

For all these reasons and more, we urge you to mark Earth Day by attending an event in your community or volunteering your time to cleanup your favorite park or beach this weekend.

Get green in Renton and help , or head over to the .

The following weekend, on Saturday April 28 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., team up with the City of Renton Park Department for Arbor Day. Check in at the Renton Senior Activity Center, 211 Burnett Avenue North at 9 a.m.