Everything’s just a little bit greener today. The cars, the grass — the beer.

But for the Indianapolis Zoo, St. Patrick’s Day is just one day in a year dedicated to being green.

“It’s a whole new theme for 2009,” zoo spokeswoman Judy Gagen said. “Conservation is our mission. That’s it. Obviously, we concentrate on animals, but environment is energy, everything. We’re involved in the whole thing. We’re a conservation organization.”

The mission for 2009, Gagen said, involves the zoo striving to help others to recycle and save energy.

The zoo’s “Unused, Unplugged” initiative will encourage everyone to unplug all appliances on April 22 to save from vampire power — the energy sucked from your unused appliances.

“A lot of people don’t realize that they have a lot of appliances that when they’re not in use, they’re still using power,” Gagen said. “We’re going to try to get people to unplug those. There’s a whole bunch of electricity being wasted.”

On May 9 and 10, the zoo will host a “power recycling” event for guests to bring their electronics in for recycling.

The zoo also began a manure-recycling program last fall, and the facility runs on 100 percent green energy with Indianapolis Power&Light.

Being green isn’t a new thing for the zoo, which in the past year has recycled 6.5 tons of paper, 23 tons of cardboard, 4 tons of bottles and cans, 520 cubic yards of wood and 12 tons of scrap metal.

Not only that, but the zoo will soon change its mission statement to say that its ultimate goal is conservation.

“It’s just sort of integrated in everything we do, these days,” Gagen said. “We’re just in the green.”