Tampa environmental advocates encourage celebrating Earth Day every day: 'Clean up and green up'

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Every day is Earth Day at Keep Pinellas Beautiful.

Pat DePlasco, the executive director of the group, has scaled the impact of this group over the last decade.

The backstory:

When DePlasco started in 2015, KPB was doing about 250 projects a year. Under her leadership, that has grown by more than five times.

"We treat it as such. And we do approximately 1,400 community improvement projects a year," DePlasco said. "And we're always having to have different opportunities for volunteers to come and help clean up and green up our beautiful paradise."

What we know:

The group encourages everyone to treat every day as Earth Day, but still marked the day with six events to clean up the county while interest was high.

"We're not only doing cleanups, we're doing beach plantings and replanting dunes. We're working in the city of Treasure Island to replenish the dunes that were lost during the hurricane," DePlasco said. "So, we're taking advantage of having the people that are interested right now and working in projects that will really make a big difference."

Local perspective:

Over in Hillsborough County there was an Earth Day Festival. There, volunteers at Bonnet Springs Park were educating people about nature, something they do every day on site.

George Lussier, a volunteer, helps to engage the kids. 

"We do activities, depending on the grade level; we have activities where we talk about erosion, and they get to build stream beds and stuff," Lussier said. "So, all kinds of activities, and they're all tied back to nature."

Why you should care:

They want to encourage kids to get out in nature.

"When I was a child, playing outside are where some of my best memories were made," Lussier said. "And I think that's probably still true today."

And they know that's only possible if the planet is protected.

What you can do:

"We celebrate Earth Day every day out at Bonnet Springs Park. It's 186 acres of what used to be an industrial area, has now been turned into a nature park," Lussier said. "Nature's coming back in that case, which shows that even though sometimes we mess up stuff, Why? It can be rejuvenated in a lot of cases, too, if you make the effort."

Ultimately, environmental advocates want to remind everyone that we all have a part to play in keeping the planet clean.

"If you see a piece of litter, bend down and pick it up. That's the easiest thing to do," DePlasco said. "We can reduce our waste by being mindful shoppers and buy things that we need, and not buy things we don't."

What you can do:

Earth Day is coming to a close, which does not mean it is too late to get involved.

Keep Pinellas Beautiful has dozens of scheduled events in the coming weeks, listed here.

There are other Keep America Beautiful chapters across Tampa Bay. You can find a list of those chapters here.