Make Thanksgiving Green

The Thanksgiving color palette is a wonderful mix of reds, golds, browns, orange, and a splash of yellow. It’s turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and eggnog. It’s also leftovers, food waste, large portions, extended use of utilities, and long distance driving.

It might be time to think about a Green Thanksgiving, meaning reduce, reuse, and recycle.

1. Let’s start with leftovers and Food Waste. Have your guests bring their own reusable food containers to share in the leftovers. Avoid food waste — check out this infographic on how much food is wasted during Thanksgiving.  Serve smaller portions, not only will it help with food waste your guest won’t have to let out one more notch on the belt. 🙂  Compost your scraps. A large portion of the waste sent to landfills is food waste, creating greenhouse gas emissions, and as the food decomposes it creates methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Repurpose the leftovers into other great dishes over the next few days. Freeze some of those dishes and you’ll have a few meals for those nights you don’t want to cook. For more ideas on food waste visit this website.
2. Decorate with nature. Instead of store bought decorations that eventually end up as waste in the dump, you can find wonderful and creative ways to use nature for decorations. The use of tree branches, pine cones, pumpkins and more create a wonderful decor for your home.
3. Dishes and Utensils. Who wants to do dishes after a large holiday meal. If you don’t want to use  your good dishes and want to go disposable, choose compostable plates, cups, napkins and utensils made from 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper.
4. Recycle, Recycle, Recycle. Provide bins for your guest to recycle cans, paper, bottles, plastic, aluminum, glass, and more. Not sure what can be recycled, how to recycle, where to recycle? Check out what is allowed on the Waste Management website.

Give thanks for all that you have, for family, and show your thanks for the environment by going green.