April Fools Day came and went without my indulging, even a little, in a newspaper headline prank, so I think I’ve earned a little leeway in writing about another working holiday this month, Earth Day.

The first time I ever heard about Earth Day was in the late ‘80s. I was already recycling — it was still worth a little bit of money for aluminum cans and I was a starving student — but there wasn’t much else I could do. I may have been the tiniest bit ahead of the trend in my town, but I think most people shared my approach of “why not?” if I thought about it all.

It’s completely different today. I suspect I’m a good distance behind the trend, too. I can’t stop myself from picking up litter on a trail, and after that, I have to figure out what to do with it. Trash is trash, of course, but what is the disgusting crumpled soda can, or plastic water bottle? And why is it always water bottles left on the trail? Sometimes, I end up carrying someone else’s garbage home, to recycle instead of trashing it. How and when did this happen?

When is the easy one. In 1970, Earth Day was created with the goal of riding the activism wave of the ‘60s to a new era of environmental protection.

From my perspective, that goal was clearly achieved, but the data coming from Washington Energy Services surveys suggests there are gaps. In a survey of homeowners, the company found that 97 percent of people in the state recycle but the numbers decline after that: 66 percent program thermostats; 65 percent use low-flow toilets and 54 percent maintain their furnaces.

What’s interesting is the “generation gap”. In a comparison of Baby Boomers and Generation Y (born between 1980 and 2000), the older homeowners tended to be more environmentally friendly. While 42 percent of Generation Y surveyed use programmable thermostats, 67 percent of Baby Boomers do and 27 percent maintain their furnaces, compared to 67 percent.

Answering the question of how I came to my recycle habit  is a little tougher.

Maybe I got it from my family. My Mom is German, and grew up recycling everything, down to the corks from her parents’ wine bottles. Her brother worked at a paper recycling plant for most of his career, and that’s where I first discovered you even could recycle paper.

It probably worked like erosion; first I concede the loss of revenue from recycling cans because it wasn’t much, then (why not?) I start to recycle paper, glass, plastic, then trash collection fees went up, I switched to a smaller trash can and a bigger recycle bin, and now it’s a lifestyle.