At Your Next Party Make the Fun Last, Not the Waste

MISSION, KS--(Marketwired - Apr 4, 2013) - (Family Features) When hosting a party, the excitement is often about the guest list, invitations and the menu, but what about the amount of trash that comes out of gathering with family and friends? Actress Tiffani Thiessen and party planner, Heidi Mayne, share innovative and eco-friendly party planning ideas, so you can increase the fun, while decreasing your waste. 

Thiessen and Mayne have teamed up with The Glad Products Company to go "One Bag" -- working toward the ultimate goal of sending just one bag of trash to the landfill, with the rest being diverted to recycling and compost.

"My goal is to inspire others to go one bag, no matter the occasion, which is why I've teamed up with Glad. Whether I'm hosting a cocktail party for friends or a birthday party for my daughter, it just takes a little bit of planning to cut down on waste," said Thiessen. "When planning a party it's important to go out of your way to make your guests feel special, even with trash diversion. Your efforts might even inspire friends to carry new waste habits into everyday living."

Below are a few tips Mayne suggests for keeping waste to a minimum at parties:

• Reduce - Think about future dinners when preparing your party menu. Serve items that will freeze well. If you have leftovers, this will reduce food waste and give you a head start on dinner the following week.
  
  
• Reuse - If you entertain frequently, invest in the real stuff -- china, flatware, glassware and napkins. Accumulate it slowly by shopping at thrift stores and the sales at your favorite stores. Select a solid color and stick to that color to build a collection you can use year round. For example, red is great for everything from Christmas to Valentine's Day, to the 4th of July.
  
  
• Recycle - Create sorting stations with proper receptacles -- trash, recycling and compost -- to make sorting waste easy. Then ensure sorting station signage is bright and noticeable so guests know where things go. Use colored chalk on chalkboards, have your kids draw colorful pictures of the recycling symbol, paint signs on recycled wood, or take photographs of your children holding letters that read RECYCLE. Enlarge the photos, place them in frames, and hang them above the recycling bin station.
  
  

"You don't have to sacrifice style and individuality when introducing eco-friendly elements that promote the three R's into your plans," said Mayne of Red25 Events. "From 200 wedding guests to intimate backyard barbecues, you can make small changes that will make a big difference to reduce your waste."

For more helpful tips, including a helpful how-to guide on planning and executing a waste-conscious event, head to www.Glad.com/onebag.

About Family Features Editorial Syndicate
This and other food and lifestyle content can be found at www.editors.familyfeatures.com. Family Features is a leading provider of free food and lifestyle content for use in print and online publications. Register with no obligation to access a variety of formatted and unformatted features, accompanying photos, and automatically updating Web content solutions.