Eco-friendly kids parties

Cathleen Daenzer • July 24, 2021

Source: https://www.mylittlepartyhire.com.au/

Photo credit: Photoprosecreative

Jasmin from My Little Party Hire has created fantastic handcrafted wood-based décor and children's furniture to provide a unique party experience.

What is an eco-friendly party?

You might be wondering what distinguishes a usual kids party from an ec0-friendly party.

In this article, we will explain how you can have a birthday party without producing a massive amount of waste consisting of plastic plates, plastic cups, plastic toys and other supplies needed for your kid's party.

Eco-friendly = friendly to the environment. By using eco-friendly products, reducing unnecessary rubbish and reusing non-plastic party decorations and tablewear, we can make a positive impact on climate change.

There are reasons for a celebration all year round. It doesn't matter if it's a birthday, a baptism, the start of kindergarten or school. We all like to celebrate. But, unfortunately, the flip side of the coin is usually mountains of trash. Like party decorations and party tableware, most party supplies are made from cheap plastic, which are only used once and then go into the bin. But it is so easy to go a different, more sustainable way.

The first thing for an eco-friendly birthday party is to minimize the rubbish to an absolute minimum or even to celebrate the kid's party according to the zero waste principle. This includes party invitations, decorations, utensils for party games and gifts. For some of the eco-friendly ideas, parents have to invest more money at first than for the disposable alternative. In the long run, however, reusable and sustainable options only offer advantages, will save parents cash and are better for our nature.

Zero Waste Party ideas:

Party decorations

At an eco-friendly birthday party, a delicious birthday cake is usually the most beautiful decoration for children. If you still want more party decorations and supplies when hosting a kids party, we recommend fabric bunting. Whether you do a DIY craft project out of it or you buy one, you can reuse it as often as you like. The fabric bunting can also become a gorgeous accessory for your child's bedroom for the rest of the year. You can also use fruit as party decorations. Create a fruit bowl out of watermelon, dolphins from bananas or search for more 'fruit decoration for table' online.

Healthy birthday cake made by Little Folk Cakes in Sydney

Disposable Tableware

Forget plastic and paper party plates and cutlery. Instead, use reusable metal cutlery and real dinnerware. An alternative is plates and bowls made from fast-growing bamboo and corn fibres.

If you can't or don't want to spend any money on plates and cups, there is another option. Just ask your party guests and friends to bring their own picnic supplies. You will be surprised, but the vast majority have absolutely no problem with it, and the BYO idea might become the new trend for the next party.

Plastic cups

Forget about disposable cups, too. They are a waste of valuable resources. Instead, use plastic-free simple screw-top jars. They are free, extremely sturdy, and seal tightly—the best protection against a clumsy child who trips over the picnic blanket. You can also get creative. Decorating the jars can be a fun art and craft activity for the kids. The jars could then also become part of the gift bag, which kids love. Parents who are afraid of broken glass at the kids' party can resort to the unbreakable alternative made of bamboo.

Reusable Napkins

Admittedly, paper napkins are pretty to look at. It's just too bad they end up in the trash so quickly. A green alternative is cloth napkins that you can create easily. Get creative and dye or print your own plain cloth napkins to match your themed party better. A cheap DIY option is also possible. Simply cut out squares from cotton fabric remnants with zigzag scissors. As a measure, you might find an edge length of 30 cm perfect.

Candles

True sustainability in candles is unfortunately difficult to achieve. Most are made from kerosene, which is derived from mineral oil. Stearin candles are made from vegetable and animal fats. Palm oil is used in large quantities for stearin. Although palm oil is a renewable raw material, it is highly controversial from an ecological perspective. In the tropics, huge areas of rainforest are sacrificed every year for the cultivation of oil palms. Therefore, we should all use candles much more consciously. They often cost our environment dearly. We should therefore use candles very sparingly for an eco-friendly birthday party and avoid aluminum tea lights altogether.

The most ecological are self-poured candles made from leftover wax or purchased ones made from stearin with organic palm oil or organic beeswax.

Balloons

Nowadays, you can find eco-friendly alternatives made from 100% natural rubber are biodegradable.

A great alternative to balloons are paper pom poms (they fold up easily and can be reused many times), buntings or dried flowers. They fold up easily and can be reused many times.

Soap bubbles

Soap bubbles are a lot of fun for children and can be a great party game for kids. Make your own big batch of homemade and ecologically compatible lye and avoid all those tiny plastic bubble bottles and sticks. It will save you a lot of money too. You can find all the ingredients for this in your health food store or drugstore.

What does eco-friendly mean?

The term eco-friendly or environmental friendly is used across a broad spectrum of media and news. The term became even more popular in recent years thanks to the increased awareness and fight against climate change. By using eco-friendly products, we can make a positive impact on climate change. Living green as much as possible and reducing a negative impact on the environment is not as difficult as many might think.

Using harsh chemical-free cleaning products, buying package-free groceries, or getting a coffee from your local coffee shop in your reusable cup are only a few things many of us already do.

How to live eco-friendly?

Everyone can contribute to environmental and climate protection. The five main things to consider are the following:

Rethink

Do you really need it?

Refuse

If we stop buying new, unnecessary items every day, we reduce the amount of waste produced enormously. But being so strict is not always possible, and there are ways of shopping eco-friendly.

First, buy local and buy things, particularly fruit and veggies, that are in season and that did not have to be transported from far away.

Refuse unnecessary plastic packaging. Whenever you are asked if you want a plastic bag, your answer should be a NO. Instead, use your cotton bag. If you don't have one, look for a paper box lying around in the shop and reuse it. By refusing more, we cause fewer emissions, less waste. In the first place, rubbish that is avoided is by far the most environmentally friendly impact we can have.

Reduce

Reduce means to buy less. For example, instead of buying five new pair of shoes every year, you could try buying half as many, or even less. This brings several advantages. If you buy less, you can afford better quality shoes made out of eco-friendly materials.

But, of course, reducing our consumption and thinking more green doesn't just apply to clothes. Reducing everything that causes emissions and waste, like packaging of all kind, car and air miles, milk and meat consumption, etc., creates a positive impact on the environment.

Reuse

Following an eco-friendly lifestyle includes reusing items. An excellent example of this are plastic bags, which we don't have to banish from our household necessarily wholly if we already have them. Instead, it is ecologically beneficial to use them repeatedly until they are no longer usable and we can dispose of them in the recycling bin.

A better option than plastic bags are cotton bags that are eco and can look super fun. Another example is reusable coffee cups instead of getting disposable coffee-to-go cups over and over again.

Re-gift

Before you throw things away, think of gifting it to someone who could still make use of the item.

Repair

Can you fix it and use it again?

Recycle

Feeding into the material cycle is excellent. However, the most important steps into an eco-friendly life are the previous three steps: refuse, reduce, reuse.

Unfortunately, even though recycling reduces emissions, sorting, cleaning, and further processing is energy-intensive. Also, only a little more than half of the recyclable rubbish collected is actually recycled. The rest is simply incinerated. So yes, we need to recycle, but we need to refuse, reduce, and reuse even more.

Rot

Whenever possible, try to use compost for organic waste. Avoid mixing food waste with other household waste. If you have a garden and space, use your own compost and create fertile soil to grow the healthiest and most environmentally friendly organic fruit and vegetable.