Your Complete Guide To A Zero-Waste Holiday

A low-waste Thanksgiving starts at the grocery store, so be sure to grab reusable shopping bags and a few smaller produce bags to hold your haul. Avoid foods packed in plastic whenever possible, looking instead for loose items or ones in glass jars that can be reused. Turn to bulk bins for your nuts and grains, and if there's a farmers market going on in your neighborhood, challenge yourself to shape a side dish out of the fresh produce you pick up there. If you don't have access to a farmers market, look into grocery delivery services that give food waste a second life. Imperfect Produce and Hungry Harvest deliver "ugly" produce that would have otherwise been tossed based on aesthetics alone.

Environmental activist Erin Schrode is all about letting the local produce shine in a turkey-free Thanksgiving. "It may sound sacrilegious to skip the turkey on Turkey Day, but the planet will thank you," she says, adding that going meatless will also likely mean less packaging, transportation, and energy use on production and manufacturing.

Once you decide on a menu and start cooking, throw any scraps you collect into a Mason jar and pop it in the freezer for your food waste leftover feast (more on that later). Got nonedible scraps like eggshells or pits? Compost 'em! Save any empty glass containers for leftovers or use them as fun displays for your kitchen supplies.

Pack up the leftovers in reusable jars and send your guests home with anything you know you won't be able to eat. These jar separators can help you avoid a gravy-soaked soggy turkey disaster. During kitchen cleaning, swap sheets and sheets of paper towel for a microfiber cloth, and be sure to use eco-friendly cleaners.

Use any food scraps you collected during prep work for a warming veggie scrap stock or pesto. Combine it with this "everything but the kitchen sink" leftover bowl, and all of your Turkey Day leftovers will be gobbled up come Monday.