Portsmouth Celebrates Earth Day

Every April you are guaranteed a few things: taxes, Easter, and seasonal allergies. However another pretty significant event is Earth Day. This day is celebrated every year on April 22nd (so…yesterday), and encourages the people of this world to be aware of what they can do to preserve the earth. To get a better understanding of this day, you have to go all the way back to 1970…

A U.S Senator from Wisconsin named Gaylord Nelson had the idea after seeing all the problems caused by the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. He also noticed that there was an increase in the public awareness about air and water pollution around this time period. Nelson wanted to create a day that would be a “national teach-in on the environment” type day, raising public awareness. The idea took shape when he was able to get fellow political figures involved who helped Nelson advertise this idea nationally. On April 22nd, 1970, twenty-million Americans participated in rallies across the country to promote environmental awareness.

As the years went on, Earth Day continued to grow in United States and in 1990 a group of environmental leaders wanted to take Earth Day to the next level: global. From then on, Earth Day has been an internationally recognized day of environmental awareness, and even caused Nelson to receive the 1995 Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton.

So what does all this have to do with Portsmouth? Well we wanted to take a look at all that the city has done regarding its green practices. There’s a metric of measurement that is used to measure how a city, state, or country is doing when it comes to “going green.” This is called the averaged annual recovery rate (which combines recycling and composting rates versus landfill and waste-to-energy rates) and the national percentage is about 34%. According to the NH Department of Environmental Services, the state average is a little higher at 35%. However, the city of Portsmouth’s average is a jaw-dropping 55%!

That’s a great number, and it is all made possible because of the high level of awareness this city has when it comes to the environment. Although the city does a great job of disposing of waste, it is always looking for ways to be even more efficient. Some of the ways Portsmouth wants to increase efficiency is by increasing curbside storage capacity and creating more public recycling areas (along the lines of big recycling bins next to trash cans on the street) which will encourage people to recycle inside and outside of the house.

Portsmouth (as we can see) does a great job of being environmentally conscious, and these possible new measures will only increase that. This past Earth Day was just another reminder of what we can do as a city to do our part and be effective in helping the environment. Well done so far, and you stay green Portsmouth.