Easter is fast approaching and stores are already stocked to the ceilings with prepackaged candies, plastic-wrapped Easter baskets, and rows upon rows of plastic eggs. I saw cow print Easter eggs this year – that doesn’t even make sense.
A holiday that was meant for a more meaningful purpose has been hijacked by corporations and marketing. Our consumerist mindsets have been tapped into telling us to purchase, purchase, purchase. And because we do just that, we produce an alarming amount of waste.
It’s incredibly hard to find the exact figure on how much waste is generated during Easter, but from seeing how much we spend, we can get a pretty good idea of how much is going to the landfill. The good news is, there are ways we can minimize our holiday waste and not deprive ourselves or our children of a fun Easter holiday.
How to Have a Zero Waste Easter
Look For Alternatives to Plastic Eggs
Obviously, plastic eggs are not ideal when trying to be more environmentally conscious. Those eggs will inevitably end up in a landfill due to their inability to be recycled over and over. It’s best to look for alternatives.
- Fillable Wooden Eggs
- Fillable Cloth Eggs
- Skip the eggs all together – my parents would sometimes just hide the candy throughout the house.
- Or if you’d rather have plastic fillable eggs and those are easier to obtain, look for them second hand or ask friends and family if they have any to spare.
Now, I’m not saying to get rid of all of the plastic eggs you might already have, just to slowly phase them out as they wear out and break.
Fill Eggs with Package Free Goodies
There are so many things that can be put inside Easter eggs that aren’t wrapped candies. Get creative and share in the comments what your go-to low waste treats are!
Related: DIY Recycled Crayons
Avoid Plastic Wrapped, Pre-packaged Easter Baskets
You more than likely already have a good vessel to hold those delicious and exciting treats. Look around your house and use a basket, bucket, or even one of your child’s toys as their Easter basket. There’s no need to buy one.
Related: 25 Zero Waste Easter Basket Ideas
Instead of filling those baskets with cheap plastic toys and candy with more packaging than chocolate, choose waste-free goodies:
- Homemade baked goods or package free baked goods from a local bakery
- Homemade candy
- Handmade toys from fabric scraps – I made little scrap fabric bunnies for my cousins last year
- Sidewalk chalk in recyclable packaging
- Make crayons from the remnants of other crayons by using a silicone mold
- Secondhand clothing that is needed for spring or summer
- Seeds for family fun planting in the garden
- Wooden toys
- Experience gift
Skip the Plastic Easter Grass
This stuff is absolutely horrible for the environment. It can easily clog waters ways, pets and wildlife can ingest it, and it’s not recyclable. I feel that it’s completely unnecessary, anyway. As a child, I hated the stuff. My candy always got lost among the tangled mess of plastic shreds and it ended up everywhere. Unclogging the vacuum almost became a yearly Easter tradition along with hunting eggs and eating chocolate!
Instead of using plastic grass, there are a few alternatives you can use:
- Ripped up paper from the recycle bins
- Grow real grass in your basket or bucket
- Use secondhand clothing gifts
- My mom started using hand towels after we decided the grass was too much hassle
Use Local Eggs
If you decide to color Easter eggs this year, make sure you buy them from local, free-range farms. The majority of the white chicken eggs you buy from the supermarket come from massive factory farms that cram hens in small cages to lay. The conditions are deplorable. You’re probably thinking, but aren’t local eggs mostly brown? Yes, and yes you can still color them.
Instead of using those dye kits this year, use natural foods and spices to color your eggs.
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| Source: Home Talk |
I hope these tips help you in minimizing your waste during the holiday. Have a Happy Easter!
Your cow print comment made me laugh out loud 🙂 These are all great ideas! I took my four year old to a city easter egg hunt last weekend and was so conflicted about it. I didn't want all those cheap plastic eggs full of junk, but I also wanted my kids to have a good time outside with a bunch of their friends.
Thanks so much! Yes, I understand completely! I, too, have so many fond memories of going to city wide egg hunts as a kid. Maybe the hosts of the hunts could take the eggs back for next year? That way the same eggs get reused. 🙂
I use my eggs the way they are. I have chickens who lay brown eggs and some that lay green eggs. No dye needed. And plastic eggs suck, even my chickens know that. They rejected the 2 that I got from a friend. I recycled them.
Love the seeds idea!
Thanks!!
With it being spring, I thought it would be perfect! You can even use the left over egg shells and cartons to start the seeds. 🙂