Celebrate Green!

April is the month to celebrate green - as in saving the environment. Wednesday,April 22, is Earth Day, where we all should make a conscious effort to care for our world. It's a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. However, this shouldn't be just one specific day out of the year - in order to truly make a change, Earth Day must be everyday. How can one person make a difference you ask? It's really quite simple. Here are some ideas you and your family can do on a daily basis:

• car pool
• ride a bike or walk to work
• recycle in your community
• shorten your shower time
• wash clothes in cold water
• turn down the thermostat in the winter
• take along reusable shopping bags (this takes a while to get used to, but think of all the plastic bags that will no longer be needed!)

This is just a starter list. Go to eecsd.org for more ideas and tips. You may not think that one person can make a difference but if we want our grandchildren and their grandchildren to have the quality of life we do, we have to think about how the decisions we make will impact them.

Here is something else to think about; examples of how long it takes garbage to break down:

*plastics take 500 years (think reusable bags!)
*aluminum cans take 500 years (wow!)
*organic materials take 6 months
*cotton, rags, and paper take 6 months

Going green is not only friendly to the environment, it can also be friendly to your wallet! You can celebrate Earth Day everyday with Reliabank's Ultimate Checking account. This PAPERLESS account offers you a high rate of interest which will add more "green" to your wallet! Visit us at www.reliabank.com/checking.html