Gobble Gobble! Thanksgiving is a little over a week away and that means all the planning and decorating starts NOW! Here is my simple guide on how you can try and keep this holiday as sustainable as you can.
First, why should we make this holiday sustainable? Keeping holidays are a great way to start with some small actions to help our planet out a bit, and who knows they may even become habits! Holidays are the season for things like fast fashion, decorations that you will only use once, and even a lot of food waste. University of Minnesota publish last year that “305 million pounds of food are wasted from Thanksgiving alone” across this American holiday. This is something we can all try and combat starting with these sustainability tips!
Create a Concise Shopping List
To help reduce food waste, plan out the amount of food you need for the right number of people! If you are having an intimate dinner of 4 people, don’t buy bulks of food that would feed 8 people. Make sure to only buy the amounts of food you will be eating and can save as leftovers! You don’t want to buy too much food, end up making it, and having to throw away your left over food. TIP: make your shopping list on your phone Notes app for easy access!
What to do with leftovers/ scraps?
If you have leftover scraps from cooking like vegetable scraps or peelings you can use these two ways! Vegetable peelings can be used as compost in your personal or local garden! They can also be used to make vegetable broths for future soups for the Fall and Winter season. Here is a good recipe blog you can follow on how to use your food scraps for soup broth!
If you end up having leftovers after your fun feasts, there are an array of options! You can keep leftovers for yourself or your family and eat them throughout the week. This not only helps reduce food waste but also creating a habit of using reusable Tupperware.
Another option is making new dishes/meals with your food. You can try making a stuffing casserole with your leftover turkey, stuffing, and mac and cheese! Lastly, you can see where you can donate left over foods in your community if you know you would not be able to finish it. You can check here at Feeding America to look for donation spots in your area!
Planning your Decorations
No need to buy brand new decorations specifically for Thanksgiving, you can always reuse! Reusing decorations is such a simple way to start living more sustainably and even saving money! You can decorate your Thanksgiving table with the same pumpkins and gourds you used for your Halloween decorations! These spreads can b used for all around fall decor. Adding cinnamon sticks and even pine cones, you can stretch these decorations out for the winter season and holidays as well!
Supporting local Indigenous Business’
Supporting local business’ is always important especially if they are P.O.C owned. These business’ should be supported year round but the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays are the perfect way to start this support! Buying food, or holiday gifts from Indigenous owned stores supports this community especially if they are locally owned and can help the families that created and own these brands.
Not only should you buy from these business’ but you can also start to gather more and more information about these communities and deepen your knowledge of their history, and traditions.
Here is a document that was created by the UT Science Y’all Team that has a numerous amount of different local Austin Indigenous businesses you can support this holiday season!
Keeping Thanksgiving sustainable is all about being mindful what you use and how you use your things! Remember that being sustainable is something that doesn’t have to be perfect right away or at all. There is always a room for improvement and you always have to start somewhere; that somewhere can be now!