Ideas for Eco-friendly Children’s Events

Children have a tendency to hoard, that may include all forms of plastics. Think of the last birthday party you attended. I bet all you can think of are plastic cups and plates, glitter wrapping paper, toys, wasted food, and one or two garbage bags filled with disposable plastic cutlery, none of which are recyclable.

 Let’s change the conventional mindset of “The Bigger The Better” to “The Greener The Better”.

Here are some ideas to host an eco-friendly event for your children:

1. Green invites

Running out of ideas to make fancy, colourful cards for invites? It’s time to switch to e-invites. It comes with a number of themes and colours that can be easily customizable.

2. Venue

Choose to host the event in a natural background such as a public park or a farm. The natural air and light reduce your bill spent on electricity.

3. Food

Choose to arrange for home-food cooked with local ingredients. For instance, you can have finger foods instead of popcorn. Treat your kids with healthy cake and cookies baked with love by you instead of arranging for pre-packaged processed cakes and pastries.

4. Sharing is caring

Do not throw the leftovers in the garbage. Use paper bags to pack their favourite dish from the party. Have an after-party by sharing the leftovers with the street dwellers and vendors who are less fortunate to enjoy a full course meal.

5. Tableware and cutlery 

Do away with the regular tableware and cutlery. Use sustainable options:

• Use recyclable paper plates.
• Use glassware with customized name tags for drinks to encourage the use of only one glass/ person.
• Use wooden cutlery which is not only eco- friendly but will also give an aesthetic look to your event.
• Use paper straws instead of plastic and cloth napkins instead of tissue papers.

6. Decorations

By virtue of being close to nature, it doesn’t require much decoration to spruce up the event. Switch from glitter plastic paper decorations to fabric decorations, that can be reused over a number of times. Skip out on balloons and party banners altogether and get creative!

7. Go old school

Instead of using a number of plastic props for creating fun games and activities, switch to old school games of lemon and spoon, hopscotch, bunny race, and many more. Let children run around and play in the natural setting.

8. Return gifts

Instead of buying plastic knick-knacks as return gifts, give each child a sapling and ask them to name it and grow it as their pet. Instead of plastic toys, opt to give renewable wooden toys.

9. Waste management

Instead of using three different plastic bins for waste segregation, use three recyclable cardboard boxes as bins and teach your children about waste segregation and how to keep the waste to the minimum.

10. “Bigger is NOT better”

Keep the event a small scale one, invite-only your close family and friends, and keep the noise to the minimum to not disrupt the atmosphere of your nature venue.

“We are not above nature; we are part of nature” will be the takeaway from your eco-friendly event.

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