Long Beach celebrated Earth Day by throwing a block party on Saturday on 1st street between Linden and Elm in the East Village.
The party had panel discussions, clothing swaps, mending & dye station, vintage & upcycled clothing, compost collection, native plant education, art show, Live DJs, roller skating, Connect 4, and many other fun environmental friendly activities.
The event was free to attend and was open to the public from 12pm to 5pm.
Ever since 1970 the world has observed Earth Day, a holiday focused on protecting the environment and has been given more awareness in the past several years.
The event not only highlighted Earth Day, but was also educational and brought light to several environmental issues plaguing Long Beach.
One issue brought up was the fact that Long Beach is no longer a member of Tree City USA. In order to have Tree City USA status, a city must maintain a tree board or tree department, have a community tree ordinance, spend at least $2 per capita on urban forestry, and celebrate Arbor Day.
Another issue that was being battled was the destruction that the fast fashion industry caused. Today, fast fashion uses tons of water to create a few garments that contain tons of microplastics and are only worn a few times before they are thrown away or replaced.
To combat this, Keith Stearns opened ‘Vintage Warrior’, a business that sells 90’s and older vintage clothing. Keith believes in vintage clothing. “Everything I wear or buy is vintage. A lot of people, even younger generations are starting to understand that they do not need to go buy fast fashion. They are buying vintage clothes because the quality is better and it lasts a lot longer,” Stearns said.
The Long Beach Farmers Market attended the block party advocating for people to shop for their crops locally. When a person shops at a grocery store, there is a chance that their food has traveled thousands of miles to get to the store, but local food only travels about 100 miles.
They offered free vegetables and fruits showing the differences in taste and quality from store-bought food.
Katie Allen was at the event representing her company, Algalita, a company that was founded by the man who discovered the pacific garbage patch, Captain Charles Moore. Algalita investigates ocean pollution and sells the findings to schools as teachable packages.
Katie had scheduled a special beach cleanup for the following day. “We have a beach cleanup tomorrow. But we don’t just clean up the beach. We have people help us collect microplastics,” Allen said.
Earth Day festival was very informative and it is clear that there are many different ways to be sustainable and help the environment for future generations.