VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – How big is your footprint? On this Earth Day, we’re catching up with the green movement.

It’s been 40 years since the first Earth Day was marked and things have certainly changed. From the community gardener to the hundred mile diet junkie, from turning off the engine to taking the bike, on Vancouver streets this Earth Day, green concepts haven’t lost their zing.

Appropriately, this is the day your teabags and eggshells get their own category.  The City of Vancouver is rolling out phase one of its food scraps collection program.

However, carbon emissions around the globe continue to go up. Environmental policy expert, Michael Byers, says Earth Day’s founders would probably wish we would’ve made more progress by now.

But he says the event has done its job of raising awareness of environmental issues. “We’re seeing a whole new generation of people, Canadians and non-Canadians, who are becoming teenagers and adults with a full appreciation, a responsibility for planet earth.”

Earth Day events will be held in 190 countries. Head to Earthday.ca for all sorts of events happening today and this weekend across the Lower Mainland.