Greening your holiday parties is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and show your guests that you’re committed to sustainability. Here are a few tips to help you get started: – Use LED lights instead of traditional incandescent bulbs. LED lights use less energy and last longer, therefore you will save cash in the long-term.. – Serve local, seasonal food. This is not only more environmentally friendly, but it also supports your local farmers and businesses. – Use reusable dishes, utensils, and decor. This will help reduce waste and save you money in the long run.. This will reduce emissions from transportation.
Every time you host or attend a holiday party you have the opportunity to help the environment just a little bit. With some forethought and simple changes, your guests might even be surprised by how eco-friendly this event can be. That’s because it’s easy to minimize your environmental footprint with these five tips!
1) Make sure there are enough green items on the menu so none of your guests feel like they have to pick an unhealthy option.
2) Set up recycling bins for plastic and glass containers. Guests can fill them up before they leave and recycle them another day.
3) Make sure that any food that’s supposed to be compostable is made of 100% renewable and recyclable ingredients.
4) Bring in the whole family and share the homemade treats with your guests, instead of serving small portions.
5) Keep all of your electronics (desktops, laptops, cell phones) outside so they don’t interfere with the mingling around you.
To help people understand how environmental changes can impact their lives and how quickly they can happen, we have put together a video outlining five tips for greening your holiday parties. If you want to watch it now,
By Healthy Child Staff
Are you hosting a holiday party this year? Whether it’s cocktails together with your momma friends or a full-on feast for all of the relatives, there square measure numerous ways in which to inexperienced the festivities—from decorations to food sourcing to however you upset any leftovers.
Food and Drink
Buying organic and native if attainable is the thanks to head to minimize exposure to chemical residues, hormones, and antibiotics—and to form style buds happy. If you’re serving things like cranberry sauce or beans, choosing fresh, frozen, or dried (in the case of the beans) over canned will help you avoid the hormone-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), found in those can linings. When it comes to drinks, serving filtered tap water and organic or at least sustainably produced wine (bubbly or not) is great options to add to your green holiday table.
Table Settings
When you serve meals or just appetizers on reusable—not disposable—plates and beverages in reusable glasses, you drastically reduce waste. Real silverware instead of plastic and cloth napkins instead of paper round out any eco-celebration. If you don’t have enough reusable plates to go around, you can always ask guests to BYO place settings. Sounds quirky, but more and more people are doing it these days. And kids particularly love doing this—they will compare their favorite plates with their friends. Not AN option? rummage around for disposable ware which will be composted and/or that contains post-consumer or recycled content.
Decorations
Ditch factory-made vacation decorations in favor of things from nature. And rope the kids in. Send them outside to find pinecones, branches, and other items that will make for pretty table settings and green holiday decorations. Resist the urge to burn scented candles. Burning anything–especially petroleum-derived wax candles—pollutes indoor air. And most candles are made with scented synthetic perfumes, which contain hormone-disrupting phthalates and can be lung irritants. Another thing to be aware of is wicks; conventional candle wicks can be made with metals like zinc, tin, and even lead. If you’d like to burn a candle or two, opt for ones made from unscented beeswax or essential oil-scented non-GM soy wax with cloth wicks.
Leftovers
Use whatever guests leave behind. Did you make a turkey? Make turkey stock. Do you have a lot of vegetable scraps from peeling endless piles of carrots? Make veggie stock. Recycle and compost whatever else remains that isn’t useable. And make sure to store your leftovers in glass (which is inert) instead of plastic (which can leech its chemical components into your food).
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