Balloons, plastic wrapped lollies, party blowers, party hats…..memories of a childhood birthday party.
Waiting in anticipation for the day and counting out the lollies for each of the party bags.
But with all of this eco guilt how can we have a more eco friendly birthday party without skipping out of all of the fun?
Plastic free July has been a great challenge and although i have slipped up a couple of times, (post here) overall we are making progress in using less plastic in our house.
But in the middle of this plastic free challenge is a birthday party.
You can’t be a wowser at a birthday party.
Especially a kid’s birthday party!
Fruit just won’t cut it
So how have we managed to create less plastic for this year’s birthday party and not driven ourselves around the bend in the process?
- We made our cake from scratch (no packet mix this year)
- We are making our own lemonade (following this recipe here)
- We are using brown paper bags for lolly bags.
- We are giving our guests a packet of seeds instead of plastic toys. I’ve heard of people gathering books from second hand stores to give as gifts as well.
- Our cupcakes don’t have any wrapping as they were made in silicon cases.
- We are making our own chocolates from chocolate bought at the whole food store.
- We are making popcorn
What a wowser you say but Don’t worry, there are still lollies involved so there will be plastic – but just less of it.
I also think our children adjust much better than we do as as long as there are friends, games and cake – the party will be a success.
Perhaps we need to refocus on how we celebrate parties so we can still party in the future.
