Whether you celebrate Easter for religious reasons, or simply enjoy this time of spring joy - Easter is a wonderful time of the year. We have put together the ultimate guide to having an amazing eco Easter. Our guide includes arts and crafts, egg hunts, and becoming a carbon-neutral family.
1. Egg Decoration
Decorating Easter eggs is a decades-old tradition, but using a store-bought kit can be harmful to the environment. Instead of picking up a kit made from plastic, why not try to make your own natural egg dyes at home? This all-natural egg dye recipe makes some beautiful colours out of leftover onion skins, turmeric, or red cabbage.
Once you have finished making your eggs, you can compete in a fun competition between all families to see who has made the best! They can then be eaten as a healthy snack, fed to animals or you could use them to make your own low-waste easter egg hunt.
2. Easter Egg Hunt
What would Easter be without an Easter Egg hunt? Unfortunately, using plastic eggs can create a lot of non-biodegradable waste. We recommend using your own hard boiled eggs, decorated with natural dye, as an alternative to this. You could also invest in reusable eggs, which can be used for years to come! We particularly love these eggs from Etsy.
If this is not something you would enjoy doing, another alternative would be to hide alternative treats - such as fun educational toys.
These alternatives don’t minimise the fun, but do minimise the waste!
3. Baking
Baking your own tasty treats is a great alternative to buying chocolate encased goodies from the store. They are also so fun to make with all of the family. Perhaps you could try these Easter brownie bites or these Vegan peanut butter and banana cupcakes.
To keep your baking as eco-friendly as possible we recommend the following tips:
🍪 Bake as much as you can from scratch. This is to avoid unnecessary packaging which comes as part of buying baking kits. You could even see if you have a zero-waste store near you to go and collect your ingredients without using any plastic!
🍪 As mentioned in our Sustainable Kitchen Products blog, we recommend purchasing reusable silicone cake cases. Like paper cases, they withstand extremely high heat and hold our mixture in place with ease. Plus, when it came to the really fun part (by that of course, we mean the eating), no wrappings were left stuck to our moist creations and we could tuck in a hell of a lot quicker.
🍪 Pre-heat your oven with intention: We don’t know about you, but we are definitely guilty of preheating the oven way ahead of time. Resulting in a whole load of wasted energy. So when doing your easter baking this year, remember to only pre-heat your oven for the amount of time you actually need.
4. Make your family carbon neutral
We understand that some disposable purchases are unavoidable. This is why we created the ZeroSmart Family subscription, which compensates for the waste and pollution created by your whole family.
You can reduce your entire family’s carbon footprint to zero. The plans can include everybody: you, your partner, your children and your pets. All subscriptions come with a personalised certificate officially recognising you as a carbon-neutral family.
For every adult in your family, we will reduce their carbon footprint to zero by funding trusted climate projects which capture CO2e and by planting native trees where they're most needed.
5. Recycled Easter Bunny Candy Holder
Craft is a wonderful, eco-friendly way to celebrate Easter. Especially craft that uses items that are already in your home. This is why we love this Recycled Easter Bunny Candy Holder.
It uses only four products:
Toilet roll holder
Recycled paper
Tape
Crayons/markers
Once you are finished with the crafts - why not consider using them as decorations for next year? This is another wonderful way to reduce the amount of waste generated in this year’s Easter celebrations.
6. Homemade Pinata
As previously mentioned in our eco-friendly kid's party blog, a homemade pinata, filled with whatever treats you chose, is a fun, low waste and eco-friendly option for Easter fun.
Out of the Box Gifts is a wonderful place to search for prizes to fill your pinata with. We love this Bee Bom Seed Bomb and PlayinChoc Organic Chocolate and Dinosaur toy.
This DIY pinata takes only half an hour to make. It can be made by the whole family before being enjoyed by everyone.
7. Eco Easter Baskets
Receiving an Easter basket is a lovely Easter tradition, however, it is often one that curates a lot of waste. We have put together our top three tips to make an eco-friendly easter basket (which doesn’t cost the earth).
🐣 If you’re creating an Easter basket for the first time or you don’t have a basket you use year after year, skip the cheap, plastic basket and go with a reusable option. One great option to consider is a cute storage basket. You can use the storage basket as an Easter basket until your kids reach the age when they no longer need a basket. At that point, you can simply use the basket around the house for storage.
🐣 Ditch the wasteful faux grass which is often used to fill the bottom of Easter baskets and instead opt for shredded recycled paper.
🐣 Rather than fill the basket with plastic-wrapped sweets or toys, why not opt for gifts which not be thrown in the landfill? We love using flower bulbs or house plants.
8. Plant Daffodil Bulbs
Planting daffodils is a wonderful Easter activity for the entire family to enjoy. Daffodils are one of the most reliable spring-flowering bulbs, blooming year after year with little attention. They grow well in containers, borders and grass, with a wide range of flower shapes, forms and sizes to choose from, to brighten up your garden throughout spring.
9. Plastic Free Easter Eggs
Of course, Easter would not be complete without Easter eggs - however, Easter eggs come with a lot of plastic. Luckily for us, there are some incredible eggs that can be brought, which come without any plastic packaging at all. Our favourites are COCO’s Easter collection and Guylian Seashell Easter Egg.
10. Playdough Surprise Egg
Our final suggestion on how to make your Easter as eco-friendly as possible are these Playdough Surprise Eggs. These make a brilliant alternative, non-chocolate and candy Easter egg alternative, and better yet, you can choose your own little gifts to include to match each child’s interests (with no dud surprises!)
Conclusion
This concludes our ultimate eco-Easter guide. Will you be using any of our ideas? Let us know at @ZeroSmartuk.
