A Sustainable Wedding List

2020 ended with some wonderful news. My younger brother asked his long time girlfriend to marry him!

Spoiler alert… She said YES.

It’s gotten me thinking a little bit about weddings and how they can be a disaster for waste. So I took some time to devise some sustainable wedding ideas.

(Ashley, if you’re reading this- don’t feel like I expect you to follow this or anything haha. Let yours and Daniel’s special day be all yours!)

1. Don’t buy a NEW wedding dress: Crazy I know, but thanks to the internet and thrift stores I am confident “the dream dress” can be found without contributing to the energy of a new dress being made. It could also save you hundreds (or thousands) of dollars!

2. Send out electronic “save the dates” and invites when possible: You may still need a few physical invitations for those important family members who don’t have computers but sending electronic invites when possible will save lots of paper! For the physical invitations, consider getting them printed on recycled paper if available.

3. Raid the wedding groups on social media channels: Brides are always selling their wedding supplies after their special day. Another opportunity to save money, plus keeping things out of a landfill and the energy from buying something new. THEN when you’re done with it.. Sell it again! Keep the cycle going.

4. Make decorations: Use dried leaves and a hole punch for confetti to avoid harmful plastics or dangerous (for birds) rice.

5. Rent catering items like plates, glasses, cutlery and fabric napkins: The real deal looks better than disposable anyways and then you’re not dealing with the waste or a bunch of items you may never use again.

6. If you are able, discourage gifts or encourage cash or donations instead. Cuts down on stuff you may not/ don’t need.

Give your guests seeds packets to grow something beautiful.. Just like your love!

7. Choose practical wedding favors (if you choose to have wedding favors at all): Seed packages have always been one of my favorites because your guest can go home and plant the seeds and watch them grow. (There’s a sappy love analogy in there somewhere). Other ideas I’ve seen are things like travel mugs, small jars of preserves, a bottle of homemade wine, or soap.

Zero Waste: Drying Herbs

Well folks we are into what feels like year 7 of 2020.

Thankfully the ban on single use plastic bags is going into swing in Nova Scotia as planned however most conventional stores (like bulk barn) still aren’t allowing me to bring in my own containers.. and the nearest “zero waste” shop is almost an hour drive away- I’d hate to offset my lack of waste production with carbon production from driving 75km to get to the store.

Finished dried herbs all in upcycled glass jars.

At first when this all started it wasn’t too bad, I remembered my 3 R’s: Reduce, reuse, refuse.. Whelp now I’m starting to run out of staples haha and my glass gar collection is getting out of hand.

I decided to take a stab at drying my own herbs, a few I was able to grow myself (the basil) and a few others I was able to get from the local market packaging free. Below are drying techniques for 3 of my favorite herbs:

Basil:

The basil was pretty exciting because I took this from seed to shelf. My leaves were rather small when they were done growing… I think I over crowded the pot (oops) so the cook/ drying time will vary depending on the size of your leaves.

Step one: Place leaves on a parchment lined pan, place a cloth or paper towel over them and flatten them with some books. Let them sit out in a sunny spot for 2 days.

Step Two: Preheat oven to it’s LOWEST setting (mine is 170 degrees Fahrenheit) and cook the uncovered leaves for 1-4 hours depending on the size. Mine were perfect after just one hour.

Parsley:

This one is SUPER easy but time consuming. Parsley needs to be hung to dry for “a few weeks.” As I type this, it’s still drying. But hey, find a sunny spot out of the way, forget about it for a bit and next thing you know you have loads of dried parsley!

Parsley drying in my sun room. You can also see my tomatoes reddening and a few Halloween decorations.

Update: I got impatient and popped it in the oven on the “warm” setting for a few hours (which is probably around 100-150 degrees if I had to guess). Perfect parsley.

Cilantro:

Drying the cilantro was the most labor and energy intensive (however still relatively easy).

Step One: Cut or snip the leaves onto a parchment paper lined pan. I also snipped a few of the smaller stems in there- it’s all edible, why let it go to waste!

Step Two: Preheat oven to 250 degrees Fahrenheit and bake the cilantro for 20-30 minutes, checking on it half way through and shaking it up a bit.

I now have a new respect for the price of dried herbs and spices. Although none of them were really difficult to produce, they are needed a good chunk of time dedicated to them.