By Steven Gordon, Lemonade Day National President

“Earth Day Network, the organization that leads Earth Day worldwide, has chosen as the theme for 2018 to End Plastic Pollution, including creating support for a global effort to eliminate primarily single-use plastics along with global regulation for the disposal of plastics.  EDN is educating millions of people about the health and other risks associated with the use and disposal of plastics, including pollution of our oceans, water, and wildlife, and about the growing body of evidence that plastic waste is creating serious global problems.”

Kathleen Rogers, president, Earth Day Network

Earth Day has been hosted each year on April 22 since 1970.  Spanning more than just one official day of recognition and promotion of environmental stewardship, this entire week has been publicly designated as Earth Week.

Being aware of Earth Day Network’s 2018 campaign to End Plastic Pollution and as the national president of Lemonade Day, I am asking that all our Lemonade Day entrepreneurs and their adult mentors do what we can to help in our own small way to support this campaign. I am challenging all of us who are involved in Lemonade Day this year to focus on reducing or eliminating the use of plastic products in our lemonade stands as much as possible – not only this year but for years to come.  

Earth Day Network’s End Plastic Pollution campaign includes four major components:

1. Leading a grassroots movement to support the adoption of a global framework to regulate plastic pollution;

2. Educating, mobilizing and activating citizens across the globe to demand that governments and corporations control and clean up plastic pollution;

3. Educating people worldwide to take personal responsibility for plastic pollution by choosing to reduce, refuse, reuse, recycle and remove plastics (which is how Lemonade Day can get involved in the fastest and easiest way); and,

4. Promoting local government regulatory and other efforts to tackle plastic pollution.

The Earth Day Web site (earthday.org) explains the negative impact of plastics on our environment:

“From poisoning and injuring marine life to the ubiquitous presence of plastics in our food to disrupting human hormones and causing major life-threatening diseases and early puberty, the exponential growth of plastics is threatening our planet’s survival. EDN has built a multi-year campaign to End Plastic Pollution.  Our goals include ending single-use plastics, promoting alternatives to fossil fuel-based materials, promoting 100 percent recycling of plastics, corporate and government accountability, and changing human behavior concerning plastics.”

What We Can Do Now

Here are a few suggestions on how we can be kinder to our planet this Lemonade Season:

• Print promotional fliers on recycled paper

• Use electronic communications and social media platforms as much as possible for promoting your business

• Create banners that can be used in future years

• Use paper cups, paper straws and paper napkins for consumables for serving customers

• Offer special pricing to lemonade buyers who bring their own containers

• Set up separate containers for glass, aluminum, paper, plastic and trash at your lemonade stand – then dispose of waste at recycling and waste management facilities

• Use fabric, paper or heavy-duty reusable plastic tablecloths

• Purchase tables and chairs from resale shops or borrow them from friends or family members

• Consider donating some of your proceeds from lemonade sales to a cause or charity that supports the environment such as Earth Day (www.earthday.org or a local arboretum)

I thank you in advance for doing your part in making your lemonade stand as environmentally friendly as possible.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions. Please email me any time at steven@lemonadeday.org.

ABOUT LEMONADE DAY

Founded in Houston in 2007 by Michael and Lisa Holthouse, Lemonade Day is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship.  By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults.  Through our fun, hands-on program, kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.

Lemonade Day is hosted in 66 territories in North America and is growing. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our kid entrepreneur programs. Within the next five years, Lemonade Day leaders estimate that 250,000 mentors and millions more kids will be hosting lemonade stands in North America and on other continents throughout the world.

Please visit LemonadeDay.org to learn how to participate in Lemonade Day in your city or to donate locally or nationally. Lemonade Day very much appreciates the support of our national sponsor Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers (raising canes.com), who is joined by our in-kind sponsors Reddy Ice Corporation (reddyice.com) and True Citrus (truelemon.com).