Top 6 Things You Can Do in 2026
Have you ever heard Wangari Maathai's hummingbird fable?
A forest fire erupts. Every animal flees except one tiny hummingbird, who carries a single drop of water from the river to the fire, over and over and over. The other animals mock her. You are too small. Your drop is too small. And the hummingbird says: I am doing everything I can. Why don't you join me?
That is the spirit of this Earth Day. That is the spirit of Essential Oxygen. And that is the spirit of everyone who chooses, every single day, to care about what goes into their body, onto the earth, and into the future.
Every action matters more than you think. Significantly more.
We've always believed that the products you choose for your home are a form of values made visible. Every time you reach for a formula built on food grade hydrogen peroxide instead of synthetic chemicals, you are participating in something larger than a purchase. You are demonstrating - to your household, your community, your supply chain - that there is a market for doing things right.
Here are some simple things you can do all year long.
- Reduce food waste. This is a top-ranked climate solution. Globally, reducing food waste could prevent over 88 gigatons of carbon emissions by 2050. That starts with planning meals, understanding date labels, and composting what you can't use.
- Eat more plants. Even modest shifts away from meat-heavy diets have a disproportionately large effect. You do not have to become vegan. You just have to eat a few more plants, a few more times a week.
- Compost. If your city offers composting services, use them. If it doesn't, ask for them. Food rotting in landfills generates methane. That same food, composted, becomes fertilizer for regenerative farms.
- Choose non-toxic. Every time you pick up a bottle of Essential Oxygen instead of a conventional cleaner full of synthetic chemicals, you are refusing the system that allows banned substances to end up in your neighborhood, your school, your child's body.
- Vote and advocate. Your voice as a citizen is a climate action. The people you elect determine whether your community gets composting infrastructure, pesticide regulation, clean energy, and funding for the local programs that make all of this possible.
- Talk to your neighbors. This might be the most underrated action on any list. As we wrote last Earth Day, resilience is built on relationships. The communities that survive and thrive are the ones where people know each other, trust each other, and show up for each other.
Your daily choices are not small. Your care is not small. Your community is not small.
Every drop changes the river.
