In celebration of Earth Day, a variety of climate-oriented organizations attended an Earth Day festival encouraging eco-friendly practices and raising awareness on Sunday at the Palo Alto Art Center.
From an electric popcorn maker to a working diagram of the Palo Alto sewage system, the Earth Day event aimed to educate people of all ages on the steps the community is taking to be more sustainable.
Kat Snyder, member of the organization 350 Silicon Valley, operated the electric popcorn machine — spreading the message of electrifying homes and veering away from gas use. According to Snyder, the activities during the event not only spread awareness about climate change but also brought the community together.
“These kinds of events for Earth Day are so useful because it brings the community together,” Snyder said. “We work very hard on one specific way to help the Earth, but there are so many other things like planting trees, zero waste and things like that. It’s a good way for the community to get together, find out what everybody else has been working on and see how we can help each other with our different projects.”
Susan Chamberlain, 350 Silicon Valley member, said she plans to ask the Palo Alto City Council to direct the Utilities Department to increase publicity around eco-friendly practices.
“It’s wonderful to have a designated day that all the climate organizations kind of pull together and do things like this to publicize,” Chamberlain said. “Hopefully the people who come here take away stuff that they will do every day or make changes in their lives.”
According to the Zero Waste event coordinator Maggie Wong, her booth uses an interactive game to get residents to participate in the festival and are quizzed on what goes where between compost, recycle and landfill shifting from single use plastic to reusable.
“Earth day is really important in the way that it highlights the things that we should be doing as environmental students,” Wong said. “It’s important to take care of the environment because not only as human beings you’re responsible for the type of waste that you’re generating, but also for the impact you’re generating on the environment. So, Earth Day is an annual reminder for everyone about what things you as an individual are doing for the community, for the environment, for others.”
Palo Alto city clerk Andres Orozco is a member of emergency management for the City of Palo Alto responsible for addressing large scale emergency events like earthquakes, mass shootings and flooding. Orozco said that reusing water can help the environment.
“Earth day represents sustainability,” Orozco said. “In my house I am very cautious about using water. In my gutters, I put rain barrels to collect the rain, and I use that to feed our garden and all of our plants. Global warming essentially means that there’s going to be less portable drinkable water. So, think about planning ahead and preparing for the future.”
Boryana Kalinova, a parent who attended the event, said that the event highlighted important aspects of the environment to her children.
“Kids are the future of the planet which is why it’s important they know how to protect our planet,” Kalinova said. “I loved to see the project the community is working on to see what they are doing locally for the environment.”
Luna Huertas, Environmental Outreach Coordinator for Waste Hauler company, said that the event was a good opportunity to remember or learn of the many ways to help climate change.
“Earth day is a reminder that small actions can go a long way and that when the community works together and does these small actions, they can really make very impactful changes,” Luna Huertas said.