Let's Have a Green November
The beautiful colors that nature offers us – in foliage, fruits, vegetables – can imaginatively be used in fun projects for kids. Leaves make great art projects, fruits and veggies make beautiful cornucopia displays.
Sweater weather is so cozy, and also a great reminder for us to winterize our homes, to lower our carbon footprint. This is the time to replace the filter in our heating system, reverse our ceiling fans, locate and seal drafts, and close our curtains at night, to keep the cold air out.
To “green” our yummy fruits and veggies, let’s buy them from local suppliers. Not only do they taste better and are fresher, but they don’t travel as much, and thus don’t pollute as much. In addition, warm fall soups and stews will help keep our body temperatures higher and reduce our heating bill.
Thanksgiving is the big can’t-wait-for in November! Of course, we all know about local fruits and veggies, bringing reusable bags and so on. But, can you also purchase only product that come in recyclable packaging? Or get an organic, pasture-raised turkey that was raised in a sustainable way
These little and big things add up to a “greener” November – we hope you join us in taking action!
Did you know?
November was the 9th month of the Roman calendar and its name comes from the Latin “novem”, which means “nine”.
In the States, we eat over 46 million turkeys each Thanksgiving.
The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in the fall of 1621. It lasted 3 days and had no turkey on the menu!
The state with the biggest Thanksgiving meal carbon footprint is West Virginia (at 80.1lbs of CO2) and the one with the smallest carbon footprint is Vermont (at 0.2lbs of CO2).
In the States, we throw away about 25% more garbage between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.
For Black Friday, our online shopping has a lower carbon footprint than physical store shopping, but the footprint of two-day shipping is higher than that of regular shipping.
More than a third of the food we purchase goes to waste.