Green Holiday Entertaining -- and a Recipe for Vegan Latkes

When you throw a dinner or party for the holidays -- whether for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or New Year's -- you use a lot more of the earth's resources than you do in day-to-day life. How can you reduce the ecological footprint of your feast without compromising on hospitality? Follow the game plan in Holiday Entertaining for a Small Planet, the December issue of This Green Life.

One of many recommendations is reducing the amount of animal products you serve -- not just meat, but dairy and eggs. If you celebrate Hanukkah, try this recipe for vegan latkes (potato pancakes):



Here's a printable version of the whole article:



Please share your own green holiday tips and recipes.

Daily Trash: How to Reduce It

One day this month when I was on my own (sans family), I weighed all my trash -- both garbage and recycling. It amounted to 2.48 pounds and consisted in the main of packaging. At that rate, I'd waste a staggering 10 tons in 25 years.

In Trashy Habits, my November issue of This Green Life, I pick through the trash from that day and offer ideas for reducing it.

Have you been successful in cutting back on your waste? Please share your tips!

Reusable bags gaining ground?

This weekend, I found myself at a supermarket in foreign territory (New Jersey) with an unwonted form of transportation (a car). My husband and I were stocking up on our way back to Manhattan after a visit with my mother.

"Paper or plastic?" the young woman at the check-out asked, which triggered a conversation among her, my husband and myself about which was worse.

I said it was a toss-up, which always surprises everyone, especially now that the tide has begun to turn against plastic.

Granted, paper is grown from a renewable resource where plastic is made from petroleum. And yes, it is heavily recycled and biodegrades in the environment instead of littering the landscape, clogging sewers and choking animals who eat it, as plastic does. But paper takes more energy and water to produce, and generates more greenhouse gases.

Environmentally speaking, the only good choice is reusable bags -- which my husband and I, embarrassingly, had none of that day.

The check-out person cheerily noted that lots of her customers had started bringing reusable bags. When I pressed for numbers, she hazarded 30 percent. Really??? Well, 30 percent including those who said they forgot to bring them...like us.

That still sounded like progress to me. Intention isn't the same as action, but surely must be a precursor.