Meaner Greener Me: kids’ party

Here I am after the ‘green’ kids’ party has taken place (for the post on planning, see here) – so how did it go?

There are two answers!  Before I started this blog I would have said it was a great party, it couldn’t have gone better in fact.  I had my own very contented children at the end of it, 30 happy children during it and lots of adults socialising and enjoying themselves.  The venue was great, the food was complimented and the party games went well with no fighting (bonus points!)

The second answer, bearing in mind that my aim was to host a party which adhered to my blog aims of ‘ethical consuming and responsible waste disposal’, is that it went quite well but definitely fell short of my goals on a few areas.

Still, always one to pick myself up, dust myself down and carry on, I am hoping that this blog post will allow me to illustrate the ‘green’ strengths of the party and document where I could have done better so that I can aim for perfection next time. Believe me, now that I’ve made a start on the Eco Party idea, I’m not dropping it – I’ve had my eyes opened even wider as to how much waste children’s parties can generate.

My previous post outlined some of the successes of the party, such as the venue and that a ban was made on us purchasing new outfits for the occasion.  Here is an update on the other areas:

Party bags

Here is an example of the final bag with its contents:

 

Since the last post, I added a personalised packed of sunflower seeds to each one plus a ‘healthy snack’ of dried fruit marketed at children (my kids absolutely love these little packets).

 

While I was pleased that I’d managed to find something healthy, compared to the typical party bag fair, and that came in recyclable packaging, they were bought from the supermarket (fail). The good news for next time is that they can be purchased online from non-supermarket sites.

My other half also made little labels to be stuck on each bag in the hope that guests would recycle the contents.

Keen to ensure that my eco party bags did not seem like a poor alternative to the usual, I did put quite a lot of effort into their appearance – here they are adding a burst of colour to my house prior to packing.

 

Food

I had rejected the venue’s catering option in the hope that I could cater healthily and increase the chances of sourcing the food ethically.  I had hoped to avoid the supermarket but I didn’t manage this due to a lack of proper planning and, mainly, time on my part.  I will admit though that I am disappointed.  Since embarking on 28 days without the supermarket, I genuinely hate being in them.  Spending money there for the party made me feel guilty and increased my resolve to reduce my use of them further (see my last blog post).

On the plus side, I provided lots of fresh fruit and veg – where I could buy organic, I did.  Sandwiches were homemade (free range organic egg and organic mayo, anyone?) and I had roped grandparents into helping me with home baking which reduced the levels of preservatives and other nasties.

The birthday child got involved in making marshmallow cakes:

And I made banana cake with organic bananas from my veg box plus organic free range eggs:

Cake

Major fail on the birthday cake itself which I ended up buying from Marks & Spencer -unfortunately, around the same time it was in the press for issues of some tax avoidance (Guardian, May 19 2013).

A blog reader kindly suggested that I made the cake earlier and popped it in the freezer ready to defrost the night before the party (why hadn’t I thought of that?!) but once again my planning let me down.

Waste

I made sure that the party food was all set out on our own dishes from home.  I chose to use paper drink cartons to make sure there was no juice wasted and this avoided plastic cups.  Paper plates and napkins were given to each child for eating.

In retrospect where it all went wrong was during the clear-up.  We had a 15 minute window to tidy and get out of the party room and this meant that all of the rubbish was hurriedly bundled up and shoved into bin bags.  I was busy saying goodbyes and it didn’t occur to me at the time to ask my family helpers to separate out the recyclable waste.  Next time, I’ll need to appoint ‘Green Meanies’ to keep an eye on the environmental concerns!

Presents

Despite me stating on the invitations that no one should feel they had to bring a present to the party, everyone did.  I think the bottom line is that guests really don’t like to turn up to a party empty handed, which I can relate to.  So much thought and time was put into the presents – to honour that, and ensure each one will be treasured as it should, I have put aside duplicates and those that I don’t think will be used, to give away to the Cash for Kids  appeal at Christmas time.

Lessons Learned

I’m glad we held this party with my blog aims at the centre. Despite the fact that there was a lot of room for improvement, we did actually manage to buy more ethically and reduce waste than if we’d held a party in our usual fashion.  Writing up this post has highlighted to me where I can get it right next time and, believe me, I’m going to get there!

Meaner Greener Me: Party planning

Children’s parties are surely the enemy of the environmentalist? Presents, paper, food, party bags…and worst of all, a lot of it is simply wasted.

For anyone who has enjoyed/suffered (whichever is applicable) the task of organising the celebration of a child becoming a year older, I am guessing you will have seen presents opened that are never used because they are not to taste or are a duplicate of something your child has already.  Everything is wrapped up and, in a new trend, is often also in a gift bag.  For food that has taken hours to prepare, a significant amount of it usually has to be binned as it is impossible to estimate how many chocolate marshmallow cakes each child will want.   Probably the biggest waste of money and effort of any aspect of a child’s party is the party bag!  Kids love them, I can’t argue, but in my experience they are generally filled with small plastic toys, horrible sweets full of terrifying ingredients and have themselves a plastic feel that I sense will be lining landfill for decades.  Here is a selection of the type of content typical of these bags:

So, guess what?  Despite my new awareness of ethical consumption and waste, I am hosting a kids’ party at the end of the month…

Why? Aside from the obvious reason of having a very excited child with a birthday coming up, I do actually believe that it is a good exercise for me to contribute something valuable to my children’s lives and their community.  By hosting a party I get to watch the children interact with their friends in a way that I am excluded from by nursery.  Plus it brings together friends that I don’t see often, as well as offering an opportunity to socialise with the parents of nursery friends who will share a lot of experiences with us over the next decade or so as our children start school together.

So how can I improve on the typical environment-wrecking kids party?  Here are my ideas so far – if you have any more, please please let me know!  I aiming for this party to tie in with my blogging objectives of ethical shopping and responsible waste disposal.

Venue: I have booked the local sports centre for the party.  It is run by a charitable trust dedicated to providing services to the community on behalf of the local authority.  Most of the 30 guests live locally which increases the chances of them arriving on foot, and more importantly, not polluting the environment by driving.

Invitations: With more planning, I could have done better, however the invitations were paper so therefore recyclable.  They were from Marks & Spencer and although they were produced on ‘paper made from responsible sources’ (what does that mean??), they were made in China, so had to travel across the world to reach me. With reference to my post mentioning spoiling children, I have made it clear on the invitations that there is no need to bring a present – hopefully if anyone actually adheres to this, it will contribute to reducing waste (gift, paper, sellotape, money etc.)

Food: There was an option to have the food catered by the venue but as all of the children are under 5 years old, I have decided to provide it myself to make sure there are some healthy options.  Further, it gives me some control over where the food is sourced – I would like to limit, or ideally avoid, using the supermarket.

Prizes: I aim to provide ‘ethically sound’ prizes and definitely will be avoiding plastic toys!  For ‘pass the parcel’ I have chosen a small prize (see below) to limit the amount of wrapping paper I need to use and I’ve been saving the awkward sized pieces of paper, that I normally stick straight in the recycling box, to wrap the prize.  Plus I have some old kids’ magazines pages I can use for extra layers.

Birthday Cake: Okay, I’m struggling with this a bit and am realising that I’ve probably missed a trick by not ordering one from a local company a few weeks ago.  Surely the most ethical way I can source a cake is by baking one from scratch at home? (Limit packaging, use organic ingredients, avoid the supermarket etc). I think though with having to prepare all of the food, this may be outwith what is realistic for me.  Bear in mind that prior to me having children I was a ‘slam it in the microwave’ kind of a girl.  I have definitely improved and now bake regularly but it has been known for me to attempt a cake that has, for whatever reason, failed.  I’m not sure that this is a risk I can take on the morning of the party – ‘no cake’ would be a lesser issue than what it would do to my state of mind…

Party bags: Here’s how I’m doing so far

With the exception of the tissue paper, everything in the picture is from Yellow Moon. I chose this organisation because they will donate a small percentage of each thing(specified on the site) to a charity of your choice.  Also, as you can see all of the items are recyclable with the exception of the crayons which hopefully will be used up to avoid waste and the friendship bracelets.

I also have on order small packets of sunflower seeds from Just Seeds UK (via ebay) – these are packaged in envelopes with a personalised label.

Each child will get a piece of cake wrapped in a paper napkin.

The tissue paper has been added for a (recyclable) flash of colour so that they don’t appear to be the most boring party bags in the world.

The party bags themselves are plain white but I’m hoping the children will use the crayons to decorate them.  I have glitter letters that I am thinking of using to put each child’s name on the bag – this may justify me sticking a printed label to each one explaining that the bags and contents are recyclable as long as the letters are first removed.

Outfits: Finally, to reduce waste I am going to try and make sure we are all dressed in clothes that we own already.  I admit I have got into a habit of buying new clothes for the children if they are hosting a party.  It is unnecessary and I want to break the habit before they are old enough to realise the pattern has been established!

I’ll do another post in a few weeks with an update on how I got on with the ‘ethically consumed and responsibly disposed of’ party! Gee, sounds fun already…