Going Green in Comfort

( Beverly Omalley / FreeRangeStock.com ) From food to housing to the technology at our hands, we get a lot of use out of our planet. That's why I want to spend this holiday by showing my appreciation. For those who'd like to do the same, I offer the following suggestions for a greener Thanksgiving: Shop locally for what you can. Get as many ingredients as possible from farmers markets and stores with locally sourced foods. It might mean making a few nontraditional side dishes, but this could be the start of new traditions among your family and friends. Minimize your packaging. Cleanup will be tougher if you opt to use your own roasters and pie pans instead of aluminum ones you can throw away, but isn't our planet worth a little extra scrubbing? Likewise, forgo paper plates, plastic utensils and paper cups, if at all possible. Also, when you shop, take your own reusable bags. Put leftovers to use . Food rotting in landfills contributes to up to 25 percent of me...

Recycle or upcycle My daughter and her second-grade classmates recently learned a little about recycling and got to do a little upcycling in the process. The assignment: Turn discarded items you find around the home into something useful. My daughter’s idea: A tin-can “robot army” that functions as a desk organizer. Because a person can use only so many pens and pencils, my husband and I recommended that she scale it down to a single pencil holder, but we both agreed that making it look like a robot would be adorable. She created a face on a circle of cardboard and made robot “feet” out of the bays of an egg carton. She drew start and stop buttons onto used paper, and cut slivers of cardboard and glued them on the side to look like arms. In the end, it looked very little like a robot, and, to be honest, if I were to go to the store and buy a pencil holder, I’d choose one that looked a lot more generic than what she created (though, once the one she made comes b...