Soon it will be the holiday season with lots of gatherings with family and friends. Whether you're sharing gifts or celebrating food traditions, it's a special time of the year. At the end of those celebrations, we usually end up with bags of trash. Here are ideas to avoid some of the waste:
Gift wrap: Instead of buying rolls of wrapping paper, get creative with reusable wraps. Try wrapping a box, especially one with a lid, in wrapping paper and reusing it every year. Or have your kids paint a big cardboard box for special presents. You can also use fabric or old sheets and turn them into reusable sacks to hold presents and tie them up with a reusable ribbon. You can also reuse some of that bubble wrap you've been saving to wrap presents. Instead of buying lots of ribbon, go on a nature hunt to find some twigs, dried grasses or pieces of evergreen to make packages look festive.
Dinnerware: Paper plates and plastic silverware seem like a great solution to make holiday meals easy but why not skip the disposables and eat with real dinnerware? If you don't have enough plates and forks to go around, ask someone to bring a few or drop by your local thrift store. It doesn't take long to put dishes into the dishwasher but even if you don't have one, you can make doing dishes more enjoyable by mixing up who's responsible for the cleanup. Try including the kids or people who weren't cooking.