Brightening the WORLD!

Celebrate Earth Day with the Meridian Waste Children’s Coloring Contest

Help brighten the world by coloring and creating your vision of the provided coloring sheets. Earth Day is a day that was created to promote awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment and occurs each year on April 22. By keeping the environment clean & green through proper waste management, you too can do your part for the planet!

Let’s Celebrate Earth Day!

Contest Rules & Regulations Recipes, Crafts, Books and Tips

Download, print, and get creative with your coloring skills:

Color until your heart is content! In the spirit of sustainability, no need to crumble up your paper and start over if you think you made a coloring mistake. Make it work - turn that scribble outside of the lines into a tree or vine. Get creative with your coloring vision.

Below are the downloadable coloring pages. (11’ x 8.5” – letter sized paper) for our coloring contest per age group. Have fun creating your work of art and have your parent/guardian help you to submit your final artwork including the submission information form below.

Ages 5-7 Coloring Template
Click here to download PDF

Ages 8-10 Coloring Template
Click here to download PDF

The contest is now closed

The 2024 Brightening the World Earth Day Coloring Contest is now closed and is no longer accepting submissions for the 2024 coloring contest.

Fell free to continuing downloading the images for coloring and know the 2025 contest will be open to submissions on March 1, 2025.

Happy Earth Day!

Grand Prize: It's a Surprise!

The Meridian Waste staff will review the submissions and choose three (3) winners per age category to be announced on the website on April 22, 2024, by NOON EDT. One (1) prize per winner will be mailed to each winner after April 22, 2024. There is no cash value or monetary award.

15 Things You Can Do To Protect The Earth

WE’VE GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN OUR HANDS!

Let's Celebrate Earth Day!

Support our pollinators - Clean up plastic in your neighborhood or park - Swap out your kitchen and household products - Stop pesticides and chemicals in the garden - Let’s work together to make our planet healthier! Below are some ideas of ways you can make this Earth Day a green one.

Did you know?

According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, "the first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, when San Francisco activist John McConnell and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson separately asked Americans to join in a grassroots demonstration. Dealing with dangerously serious issues concerning toxic drinking water, air pollution, and the effects of pesticides, an impressive 20 million Americans—10% of the population—ventured outdoors and protested together."

Recipes

Earth Day Green Smoothie

Earth Day Kale Salad with Lemon Dressing

Green Pizza Recipe for Earth Day

Earth Day Ice Cream

Green Crafts

Paper Plate Earth Day Craft

Supplies:

Paper Plate, Blue Paint, Green Crepe Paper (tissue or construction paper will work as well), White Cardstock, Black Marker, Googly Eyes, Scissors, Glue

Directions:

Paint paper plate blue

Cut pieces of crepe paper and glue to paper plate. Remind the kids that Earth is made of more water than land

Glue googly eyes to the plate and draw a mouth and any other facial features your child may want with a marker

Cut 4 strips of white paper. I cut 2 longer and wider for the legs. Accordion fold the strips of paper and glue or tape the back of the paper plate so that your earth has arms and legs

Credit: The Resourceful Mama

Earth Day Seed Bombs

Supplies:

Colored paper (blue, white and green), Packets of wildflower seeds, Water, Bowls, Blender

Directions:

Start by tearing the paper and putting into three separate bowls. Cover with water and leave to absorb for about half and hour.

A grown-up is needed for the next step - put one colour of paper into a blender and blitz thoroughly until it forms a wet pulp. If you find it doesn't blend very well you can always add a little more water. Do this for each of the colours and put them in separate bowls. The mixture might try to separate a little but don't worry, you can always squeeze out any excess water.

Tip your seed mixture into the blue bowl and mix thoroughly.

Scoop up a small amount of the blue pulp and seed mixture (around the size of a large marble) and form it into balls

Take smaller pieces of the green and white pulp and press them into the surface to create the contents and ice caps. To give them and even finish, roll the balls gently between the palms of your hands.

You can plat your seed bombs in the ground straight away, just make sure you follow the instructions on the seed packets. If you need to wait to plant them, you can leave them to dry, just make sure you give them a good soak when it comes to planting time!

Credit: How We Play and Learn

Make an Earth Day Collage

Supplies:

Cardboard, 10 inch cardboard cake board, Magazines, Pencil, Glue, Mini wooden sticks (optional), Paper tag with "This is Me" written on it

Directions:

Start by cutting out a piece of cardboard for your background, about 12 inches by 14 inches.

For our circle we used a cardboard cake board, but you could also just cut a circle out of a cardboard that is about 10 inches in diameter

Use your pencil to freehand part of the wold onto your circle. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Kids can even look at a map and do this step themselves.

Look through several old magazines and tear out pages that have lots of black, green and blue on them.

To start our collage, trace your circle Earth onto your cardboard background then remove it. Tear little pieces of the black colored magazine pages and glue them around our cardboard backing, leaving the circle empty in the middle to put your Earth on.

Credit: I Heart Crafty Things

Green Books To Read

Check out your local library, or trade books with a friend! Here are some ideas:

Earth Day, Every Day

by Lisa Bullard

Compost Stew

by Mary McKenna Siddals

Michael Recycle

by Ellie Bethel

Why Should I Recycle?

By Jen Green

Fancy Nancy: Every Day is Earth Day

by Jane O’Connor

Emeraldlicious

by Victoria Kann

Oh Say Can You Seed?

By Bonnie Worth

Green Activities

Get outside and enjoy Mother Earth!

Go for a hike!

Check local websites for a list of trails in your area. Use search words like "hiking trails or city/county parks near me"

Trash Clean-up!

Grab a trash bag and some gloves and take a walk around your neighborhood and beautify your local roads

Explore your town by bike!

Use key words like "Bike paths near me" to search for areas to explore by two wheels

Create a composting pile!

Check out this link for more information on how to compost at home

Make a homemade bird feeder!

The link will take you to a site with more than 20 ideas of bird feeders you can make with items you likely already have at home!

Use a free printable to do an Earth Day Scavenger hunt in your own backyard!

Plant seeds for pollinators in your area!

Check out the information below from Pollinator Partnership

What Are Pollinators? Birds, bats, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, wasps, small mammals, and most importantly, bees are pollinators. They visit flowers to drink nectar or feed off pollen and transport pollen grains as they move from spot to spot.

Why Is Habitat Creation For Pollinators Important? Improved pollinator habitats can increase the presence of native pollinators on working vegetable, fruit, and grain farmland. This can improve farm viability and climate change resilience. Climate change is causing more frequent and erratic weather extremes, such as drought and intense rain events.

Learn More About Pollination by watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TreF11iuLc

Do you know What to Plant for Pollinators In Your State? Visit the link below!

https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/pollinator-friendly-plant-lists

Conservation Tips

Here is a list of ideas for ways you can practice conservation from howstuffworks:

Conserve Water
Be Car-conscious
Walk, Bike or take Public Transit
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Switch to LEDs
Live Energy Wise
Eat Sustainable Foods
Plant a Tree
Give Up Plastics

To Learn more about Earth Day, visit https://www.almanac.com/content/earth-day-date-activities-history

Official Contest Rules & Regulations

This coloring contest is a fun way to engage children on Earth Day. This contest is intended for children ages 5-10 who are split into two age categories. Coloring pages per age category can be downloaded from the Meridian Waste website.
There will be three (3) winners per age category (placed 1st, 2nd & 3rd); six (6) winners total. Winners will be chosen by Meridian Waste staff and announced on the website on April 22, 2024, by NOON EDT.
This is a skill-based contest and chance plays no part in the determination of winning.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. A purchase will not increase your odds of winning.
Contest entry begins March 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM EDT, and ends April 15, 2024 at 11:59 PM EDT.
To enter, print out one of the PDF coloring sheets that are located at https://www.MeridianWaste.com/Earthday and color it in using any medium you'd like. Upload your entry via the submission form linked below the coloring sheets. Entry must be received by Meridian Waste no later than 11:59 PM EDT on April 15, 2024, by website submission. No other method of entry will be accepted.
Contact and address information collected will be used for the purposes of this contest only and will not be used for marketing or other purposes.
Limit one (1) entry per person. All entries must be original and entirely created by the entrant. There are no restrictions on what an entrant can use to color the image.
Three (3) winners in the 5-7 age group; three (3) winners in the 8-10 age group will be announced on the company website on April 22, 2024. We will contact the winners’ parents or legal guardians on or after April 22, 2024, using the preferred contact number that is listed on the form.

All entries become the property of Meridian Waste and Meridian Waste is granted the permission to publish the artwork with the child’s first name, last name initial, and city/state for appropriate media distribution including general press releases promoting and announcing the contest or future contests.
Winners agree to share a picture of the child to accompany the winning artwork.
Non-compliance or return of prize notification as undeliverable, whether by email or telephone, may result in disqualification and selection of an alternate potential winner. In the event of insufficient entries for an age group, a winner may not be chosen for that age group.
Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received.
Meridian Waste employees’ children and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter.
Copying, tracing, and electronically generated artwork will be disqualified.
Meridian Waste is not responsible for lost, late or misdirected entries, or incomplete/incorrect entries.
By participating, Contest entrants: (1) represent that they have complied with these Official Contest Rules; (2) have received parental consent and grant Meridian Waste the right to use his or her name, city, and state (3) release Meridian Waste from any and all liability in connection with this Contest.
This contest is open to all children in the United States. At this time, Meridian Waste is unable to award prizes to those located outside of the United States.
There is no cash value or monetary prize associated with this contest.
All submissions must be uploaded to https://www.MeridianWaste.com/Earthday with file formats of a JPG or PDF. All submissions must be completed by a parent or guardian age 18+ with correct contact information. No information will be sold or used for any purpose outside of the contest.