Eco-Friendly Birthdays

This year celebrate the environment on your child’s birthday

As a parent, we all have a love-hate relationship with throwing and attending birthday parties for children. Every year’s celebration is like a mini-wedding in the making. We want them to have the best time ever, but with the location, theme, and guest invitations also come the stress…and waste! Mums go helter-skelter looking for themed cutlery, return gifts, decorations and everything else that comes in between! In a party for 20-30 kids, using an average of over 100 single-use plastic items is considered normal.

So yes, children’s parties are all about fun, games and delicious treats. But once you throw in the plastic plates, décor, balloons and dozens of bags of plastic birthday favours, they suddenly become a sustainable headache. So we share below some tips and tricks on how to throw a party (not only just birthdays) that is kinder to the environment but also fun, practical and completely fabulous: 

E-Invitations - An invitation sets the tone for an event, and there’s no denying that a pretty or embossed invite adds a special touch. But let’s agree most invites end up being disposed of. Instead, get creative with your child to create a digital invite with the theme. It will engage your child, and they will understand the value of the environment.

 Greener party decorations - We know it can be tough to escape plastic completely; the problem with the stuff is that it’s everywhere. Drop the balloons immediately. The plastic is likely to end up in landfills or in the sea. Helium is relatively rare and has experienced shortages recently, so there’s no point in using up a finite resource to its extinction. Instead of balloons get blowing with an eco-friendly bubble machine, which can be used year after year, which is so much more fun. Try making bunting, banners, paper chains, tissue paper pom poms, streamers, garlands, paper fans in different colours.

Cutlery and tableware –To avoid single-serve drinks, use recycled glass jars with name tags to encourage the use of only one glass per person, use paper or reusable metal straws, cloth napkins, and compostable plates and biodegradable cutlery that nourishes the earth along with providing the easy composting method. These products can just be broken into pieces after removing the food residue and tossed directly into the compost bin for decomposition. 

Go green with the games - Go beyond the traditional superheroes and princess parties. To spread the sustainability message, include eco-friendly activities for games like paper waste sorting activity which is a simple, educational and economical way of having fun. 

Eco-friendly party favours - There’s no question about it- kids love goodie bags! These days, sending guests home with a party favour has become the norm - but we can change that . Instead, the best way to provide kids with party favour bags is to have them make their own as part of the party activity. For example, invite guests to grow their plants with seed packets or give eco-friendly stationery, among other ideas. 

Conclusion: 

A low-waste party can be as much and engaging as any other ‘normal’ party! We hope you find our ideas to throw an environmentally conscious party useful. We at Ecobee are doing our best to spread the message of sustainability. For your next celebration, choose to go green with games or choose eco favours from our eco-friendly birthday collection. Email us at hello@ecobee.ae for more details.