(Haines Friends of Recycling/Earth Day Ad-hoc Committee)

There is a full schedule of events planned to celebrate Earth Day in Haines this Saturday, April 22.

Melissa Aronson is one of the organizers.

“Our overarching theme is all about clean oceans and waterways and how to keep pollutants out of the waterways and how to clean them up when we find them,” says Aronson.

Aronson is the board president of Haines Friends of Recycling. That organization, along with an ad-hoc committee, is sponsoring a number of events on Earth Day.

(Haines Friends of Recycling/Earth Day Ad-Hoc Committee)

The day starts with a clean up around town, put on by the Chamber of Commerce.

At 10 a.m. residents will join communities across the country for the March for Science. That starts at the intersection of Third and Main. A Skagway march starts at 1:30 p.m. at the Elks Lodge.

Starting at noon in Haines, there will be environment-related presentations at the Chilkat Center. Those talks will cover a variety of topics including discussions on coastal cleanup, maintaining healthy salmon runs, and whale disentanglement, to name a few.

During those presentations there will be separate activities for kids.

Aronson says local Earth Day celebrations have been going on for a number of years.

“Each year we try to improve what we’re doing and provide a nice array of activities for people,” says Aronson.

The environmental events don’t start or end on Earth Day. Aronson says there are community events planned for the days leading up to it, and in the weeks following. Those include river, beach and community clean ups, and fish net recycling.