I am going to show my age here but when I went to parties as a child the whole idea of party bags hadn't come about - instead the kids either went home with nothing or a slice of birthday cake wrapped in a paper napkin ... how things have changed. Now parents seem to fall into 2 camps when it comes to party bags. Some choose to keep the cost down with a small plastic bag filled with a number of generally plastic toys and sweets. Sweets are probably devoured before the children get home and toys are played with briefly before ending up in the bin. Other parents spend a small fortune of presents to go in their bags but the end result is often the same - sweets quickly eaten and yet more plastic toys that the children do not need. So what should eco-aware parents do when it comes to party bags?
My first suggestion would be to totally buck the trend and send the children home with nothing or just that slice of cake. The more people that do this the more normal it will become and others will follow suit.
However if you still want to send your young guests home with a bag of goodies here are a range of ideas to reduce the plastic and keep them eco-friendly.
Ideas for Eco-friendly Party Bags
The bag
Avoid plastic and go for bags made from paper, hemp, cloth or anything home-made from materials you have around the house. You can also make bags from newspaper or make a small box or cone.
Misc items to add to your eco-friendly party bag
- Crayons and a small colouring book/printed sheets
- Loose sweets (home-made even)
- Boxes of raisins
- Playing cards
- Wooden ruler and pencil
- Marbles
- Paper hats to decorate
- Books - you can get packs of books from book clubs are a very low price
- Home-made bath bombs
- Book marks
- Wooden yo-yo or similar toys
Foodie ideas
- Make a paper cone filled with sweets
- Bake each child a cup cake or some biscuits sent home in a little cardboard cake box
- Cookies or muffins in a jar - layered ingredients in a glass jar look gorgeous and just need the addition of an egg/butter at home.
Go for something a bit different
- A flower pot with small paper bag of compost and some seeds, either wildflowers or vegetables. Don't forget to add growing instructions
- A crafty bag filled with the loose items needed to make something eg a wooden spoon, some wool etc to make a spoon person.
- A lucky dip - wrap small gifts in newspaper, place in a big bag and let the departing child dig in for a gift.
What to avoid
- Anything made from or wrapped in plastic - don't make a party an excuse to dump more plastic on other families
- Anything too expensive
- Balloons
- Collectible items - this puts pressure on parents to buy more of the set
- Glitter - most is made from plastic
- Buying supplies online where you may not be able to avoid plastic packaging.
Do you have more ideas to create eco-friendly party bags? Or will you be brave enough to ditch party bags altogether?
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