I love Mondays… Sounds crazy, considering it is typically the most dreaded day of the week, the day that kills your Sunday in nervous preparation for the busy week to come. I like Mondays because, unlike most of the population, it’s a day off for me. It’s the day that my incredible babysitter comes to spend the day with Jasper, to give me a break to actually address the thousand things on my to-do list, that seems physically impossible to get to in the midst of chasing my toddler around.

Mondays are also the day of my beloved pre-natal yoga class, the most blissful hour and a half of my whole week. I am certainly no yoga guru, nor do I make a regular practice of it while not pregnant (though I always say I am going to), but I find a level of relaxation in this class that I seem unable to duplicate at any other point during my week. I know this has much to do with my amazing, soothing teacher named Clearlight (yes, she claims that is her real name), who comes out with wonderful phrases like, “Let your deep breaths nourish and irrigate the stretch in your thighs”, and less to do with my spiritual connection to yoga, but I always leave the class feeling so refreshed and ready for the week ahead… probably has something to do with the fact that I usually sneak in a 10 minute cat nap during the relaxation period!

As I moseyed my way home yesterday, feeling so very spiritual and one with nature, I noticed all the signs about town for Earth Day 2010, which left me feeling perplexed. What is Earth Day, anyways? Is it a day where fellow yogis like myself go and commune with nature in the woods and give thanks for all the beauty around us? Is it a day we all turn the lights out, don’t drive our cars, and eat raw food? Better question, is this a national holiday that I am not aware of? Once I got home, I Googled it to find out for sure.

Turns out that Earth Day has been celebrated since the 70′s (who knew?), and April 22nd marks the birth of the environmental movement in the United States. It is celebrated all over the world, and more than 6 million Canadians join 1 billion people in over 170 countries in staging events and projects to address local environmental issues. Basically meant as a day to inspire awareness as to how to live more responsibly, Earth Day in many cases has turned in to Earth Week or even Earth Month, because of all of the organized events and projects. Not only is it meant to inspire change globally, in regards to climate policy, energy efficiency and renewable energy, but also in your day to day life. Which made me start to think… Am I a “green citizen”? Am I part of the solution or the problem? I am an avid recycler and composter, I make a conscious effort to reduce my consumption of energy and water, I walk as much as humanly possible and I never buy bottled water anymore. But is that enough? It all seems like very minor contributions, but as a busy Mum to 1 and 3/4 children, am I meant to be out there chaining myself to trees and leading environmental rallies as well? And what about Hatley… are they an environmental friend or foe?

Once I started to do a little research, I realized that Hatley has always prided itself on keeping very high environmental standards. As I wrote about last week, all of the rain gear is PVC free. Hatley also doesn’t use azo dyes in any of their products, a toxic chemical used to dye textiles that is not biodegradable in water, and they only use only non-chlorinated bleach. They use closed loop dyers to ensure that waste water from the dyeing process does not go back in to the general water system of the communities that Hatley works with, and is then properly disposed of. The catalogues are printed on paper that comes from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) managed forests, and all of the magnetic lists are printed on recycled paper. Above all though,  Hatley specifically designs clothes that are made to last, made to be passed down from kid to kid, from the first to the fourth, and not end up in a dumpster.

The owners of Hatley, the Oldland boys, grew up in a small lakeside town in the Eastern Townships in Quebec named North Hatley. In recent years, the lake, local tourism and the residents have suffered tremendously from the discovery of cyanobacteria, or green algae, in the water.  In 2007, the boys got involved with the Massawippi Water Protection Association, a group that is dedicated to helping the local North Hatley community maintain clean and adequate water resources, and to protect the health of its local residents while maintaining local industry.  Every year, Hatley donates it’s time and resources to the Association, in an effort to make the water they grew up in clean and safe again. I’m happy to say that the lake has been green algae free for the past three years, and hopefully will stay that way.

It is not easy to be an effective green citizen, but maybe that is the point… that we all need to put some effort in to it, all day and every day. But I am realizing that is not enough. We also need to make sure that the stores and companies we choose to support and shop at also abide by a similar ideology. If we all thought that one person can’t make much of a difference, then we sure wouldn’t get too far. Luckily, Earth Day comes around year after year to remind us what we are doing it all for.

Happy Earth Day everyone!