Plastic waste and birthday parties go hand in hand. From the crinkly plastic baggies of party favors, to the red solo cups, forks, styrofoam plates, tablecloths and balloons–almost everything at a kids birthday party is plastic!
It makes sense. It’s cheap, it’s disposable, and clean up is almost too good to be true! Just drag the tablecloth and its contents from the table and into the trash, and half of the work is done! The problem with anything that is “too good to be true”, is that it probably is. Somebody, somewhere along the line is paying the price for your convenience.
In this case, it’s the environment.
The logistics of throwing a low-waste kids birthday party first started swirling around my head while I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Sustainable Minimalist Podcast. The podcast host was discussing her personal success throwing a No Presents Birthday Party. With my daughter’s birthday coming up, I thought I’d also try my hand at throwing a low-waste kids birthday party.
Here are my 9 tried and true ways to keep your plastic waste to a minimum at your next party!
1. Use reusable cups and a drink dispenser.
We opted for mason jars and chalkboard stickers to make sure people were able to keep track of their cups. How many times have you set your drink down during a party, didn’t remember where it was, and then just grabbed a new cup? Having everybody write their name on their cup worked perfectly for us.
2. Skip the balloons.
Balloons really aren’t a necessary component of a birthday party. Just go ahead and skip them all together! I thought a clever way to get around balloons would be to have paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling instead. However, the ones I ordered online were each individually wrapped in plastic. Plastic fail! Next time, I’ll skip the paper lanterns too.
3. Make your own decorations.
With the help of a close friend, some Sesame Street printables I found online, and lots of Pinterest searching and pinning, I was able to make almost all of the decorations for the party! Doing a Sesame Street party was actually really easy to DIY. This means I was able to skip a LOT of plastic packaging.
4. Borrow items from friends instead of buying new.
Use the resources you have available to you to avoid buying new products. More often than not, people love to lend a helping hand and would let you borrow an extra crockpot, cake stand or birthday banner. It’ll cut your party costs and will eliminate wasteful purchases that you might only use once anyways.
5. Make a Facebook event instead of sending out invitations.
If you’re dead set on still having an invitation, you can post an invitation on the Facebook event page. That’s what I did! It also made it simple to notify everybody that we were changing the party location due to it being a rainy day.
6. Ask friends to bring a wrapped children’s book instead of a gift.
I used this idea from The Sustainable Minimalist podcast to accomplish two things: avoid unnecessary gifts and give plastic-free party favors. This idea is completely genius! Nobody likes showing up to a party empty handed, so you’ll still get gifts even if you say “No Gifts.” To get around this, simply specify “No gifts please, but do bring a wrapped children’s book!” This way, you can do a book exchange at the end of the party and every kid goes home with a book!
We ran into a couple of hiccups with this one. I’m pretty close friends with most of the moms who attended, and word got out that it was a book exchange. We ended up getting gifts and books for the book exchange. Since my friends know that I strive to be eco-friendly, luckily we ended up with wooden toys and clothes. I’m not complaining! Every toddler at the party still got to go home with a new book in hand.
If you’re going to try this, don’t tell a single soul that it’s a book exchange. Whoops!
7. Make the food yourself instead of catering.
We were able to make most of the food ourselves, which drastically cut back on the waste that otherwise would’ve been incurred.
This means we could use our own glassware instead of having tons of disposable aluminum trays. A friend of ours who was also attending the party made the cake and cupcakes, which she brought over in a cake carrier. This saved us from any plastic packaging with the desserts.
Welcome to Ariana Street! 
Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes!
8. Use eco-friendly tableware (or better yet, reusable)
Using reusable plates and silverware from your kitchen would be the best option. However, we opted for disposable eco-friendly forks, spoons and plates. A friend had some left over from her son’s birthday and offered them to us. If you want to go for a disposable option, definitely choose these over their plastic counterparts!
9. Look into rental options.
Is there a party rental company in your area? We were able to utilize a party planning and supply rental company on base for the dessert stands, fabric tablecloths, and many other items. I was so grateful to not have to buy my own fabric tablecloths (and then what would I do with them afterwards?!) This was the perfect solution. I also was able to donate some of my decor to them so that it can keep getting reused over and over!
These are the 9 ways we focused on reducing the plastic waste associated with a kids birthday party.
Finding new and creative ways to avoid plastic use made the party planning process a little more challenging. However, it was absolutely worth it in the end. Everything went smoothly and I came away from the party with a clean conscience!
It was exciting for me to throw a low-waste kids birthday party and to jot down these tips that can help others do the same. I hope that this article will help you reduce waste at the next party you throw. If I can do it, so can you!
