Thanksgiving is a holiday of bounty. We have great feasts and give much thanks for family, friends, health, prosperity and comfort. While we may enjoy consuming leftovers for days on end after the holiday has passed, there are other ways in which we are being highly wasteful. In order to truly have a turkey day where nothing is wasted or in excess, implement a few of the following tips.
NIX THE PAPER – Avoid using paper or Styrofoam plates and plastic cutlery for your guests. Styrofoam ends up clogging up our landfills and it takes a lot of healthy trees to create dishware for the country. Use dishwasher-friendly reusables or even real dinnerware. If you can, switch out the paper towels for hand towels and the paper napkins for real ones.
SHOPPING – When acquiring all of the goodies it takes to make a fine Thanksgiving feast, remember to bring reusable shopping bags with you. A few less plastic bags in the world is a marvelous thing for our environment.
DECOR – Some families enjoy decorating for turkey day. Whether classy or goofy, try to use natural decorations instead of disposable ones. For instance, pinecones and pumpkins are big staples of Harvest season and look cute in self-made arrangements. The best part? They are biodegradable when you get rid of them! You can also use scrap materials from around your home and have the kids make Thanksgiving crafts to add a cute and fun spin to your decor.
WASHING – Instead of rinsing every plate off before you toss them into the dishwasher, simply scrape them and let your machine do the rest. Technology has advanced quite a bit where you don’t have to wash the dishes before the dishwasher does. If you wash dishes by hand, have one side of your sink full of dishwater and the other full of clean water for rinsing to save on H2O.
SIMPLICITY – Honestly, keep things simple. Instead of having a million side dishes that end up getting trashed, reduce your feast variety by one or two items. Having 2 pie choices instead of 4 will eliminate food waste and not put a damper on the holiday in the slightest. If you find that there is a lot of excess scraps on people’s plates, consider using smaller ones. By decreasing the size of plate used the folks who take much more than they actually eat will take less.
INFLATE – This may seem like an odd one but inflate your tires. Most people end up traveling on the holiday and making sure your tires are properly inflated is actually a big deal for more than safety reasons. There is a ton of oil to save in our tires, which is a big environmental relief as well as saving us money in the long run. The better you take care of your tires, the less likely you are to need to splurge on new ones.
By taking the time to make a few changes on your holiday, you can make the world a much better place for all living things.
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