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How to Go Green: Dinner Parties
[By Alex Smith]
With the holiday season just around the bend, dinner parties are likely on their way to packing your schedule. Dinner parties are fun to host and are the key to filling your schedule with many more. Whether you're thinking big with a Thanksgiving gathering or dreaming of an intimate party with a few close friends, we've put together a guide that will help you make your party eco-friendly.
If you're already thinking about the annual dinner party you're hosting in the next few months you may want to look closely at your vision. Are you planning to send out beautifully printed invites, serving a few gourmet meat dishes, saving dishwashing time with disposable plates and finally waving goodbye to your fulfilled guests as they hop in their cars to head back home? If so, you're dream party may not be so green.
A dinner party like this one can create a pretty serious amount of waste. From leftovers, to paper waste and even energy waste, not all dinner parties are created environmentally equal. In planning your next party, why not make it green? From small dinner parties with a few friends to gatherings packed with family, eco-conscious dinner parties can be fun and easy to organize.
With green in mind, you can re-imagine a dinner party that is good for the Earth and shows your guests how thinking green can go a long way. Before planning the menu, why not send your guests those snazzy invites via email instead? With your eco-conscious on, you may nix those meat dishes you were dreaming about, or reduce them, aware of the environmental benefits of serving your guests vegetarian style. These veg foods, ideally made from locally grown food, may be partnered with a tasty green wine. If you love the feel of menus at your dinner parties, you can even print up eco-friendly menus to get your guests excited about the green dishes you've created. And remember when you dreamed of waving your guests off as they drove home? Why not encourage them to walk, bike or public transport to your dinner instead? You can offer those who do travel green a fun door prize like a coupon for a morning cup of organic, fair-trade coffee at your favorite local cafe.
By changing just a few common dinner party moves, you can seriously reduce your dinner party's carbon footprint. Read on for more examples of small changes you can make to green your dinner party, doing your wallet, the environment and your guests' health, some good!
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