Skip the Plastic – 7 Ways To Have An Eco-friendly Easter
Easter time is almost here, but holidays can lead to a lot of waste, especially plastic waste. So here are a few eco-friendly Easter ideas from eco-friendly Easter eggs to eco-friendly basket fillers!
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Every holiday, there seems to be more and more supplies in stores. I walk around and honestly, a majority of it is plastic or single-use. From the now traditional plastic eggs to the single-use baskets . If you reuse some of these items for a long time then it is better, but most people will treat these as disposables, which is harming the environment and adding to landfills.
As a family, we are trying to reduce our footprint, especially around the holiday seasons. But with all the wasteful stuff on shelves, it can be a little overwhelming to know where to even start. So to help you out, here’s seven ways (more actually!) to have a more eco-friendly easter season with some easy swaps!
7 Ways to Have An Eco-friendly Easter
Eco-friendly Easter Eggs
Everyone associates Easter with Easter Eggs as that’s the tradition. However, over time, those eggs have almost all become plastic! As parents trying to reduce our footprint on the environment and be more eco-conscious consumers, we try to choose plastic-free options even when it comes to holiday traditions.
Luckily nowadays there are a lot of options available for a more eco-friendly Easter! Here are a couple plastic-free eco-friendly Easter eggs:
Eco-friendly Easter Decorations
When decorating for Easter, look for plastic-free Easter decorations like wooden signs or items made with eco-friendly fabric like bamboo or hemp. Here’s a few adorable ideas from small business Etsy owners:
You can also DIY a lot of Easter decorations reusing and repurposing items you likely already have!
DIY Easter crafts
If you already have some unwanted plastic eggs laying around, then try repurposing them into Easter decorations instead of adding them to a landfill. You can paint them a more neutral color scheme and attach them to a wreath. Another idea would be to drill a small hole in the top, loop some twine through the hole, and decorate the eggs. Then hang the decorated eggs throughout the house on twigs in vases!
Got some leftover toilet paper rolls? Turn them into adorable bunny stamps for fun Easter crafting with your child. Or even paint them, attach twine, and hang as decor or a garland.
There’s lots of ways to repurpose items for Easter decorations and crafts, so that less end up in the landfill!
Naturally Dye Easter Eggs
Another way to reduce your Easter waste is to naturally dye Easter eggs instead of buying prepackaged dye kits. A lot of these kits contain unrecyclable plastic and can have chemicals to enhance the colors, but may not be very environmentally friendly.
You can make your own natural dyes using food scraps like red onion skins, spinach, or spices like turmeric or paprika. Good House Keeping has a guide for natural dyes and how to make them. Making the natural dyes is a fairly simple and straightforward process. Just takes a bit longer than dropping a premade tablet into water!
If you’re not one to try DIY-ing your own dyes, then there are a few eco-friendly natural dye kits out there by Eco Kids and Earth Paints. Fair warning, the eggs will have to sit in the natural dye for a longer period of time to achieve vibrant hues. Personally, we prefer the lighter colors!
Reusable Easter Baskets
Firstly, find an Easter Basket that you can reuse every year! There is no point in buying a brand new basket each year as it’s just wasteful if that is its only purpose.
Go thrifting and get a secondhand basket. Or find a friend or relative that has several baskets laying around the house. Ask them to borrow a basket for a week!
If you already have a basket, but want to make it special each year, then just swap out some accessories. For example, we have this adorable golden retriever Easter basket that’s made of fabric. To make it seem new and fun each year, we can make a fun new collar for it, maybe a hat, or simply tie colorful yarn or ribbon to it. Adding personalized Easter name tags like this carrot one or this bunny one are another adorable way to update a reusable Easter basket.
If you are going to buy a new basket look for ones like this that are made from natural materials rather than coated or plastic.
Choose Plastic-Free Treats
Use Bulk Candy
Why put plastic wrapped candy into another plastic object?! Find a local store with bulk candy that you can fill up a container of and then redistribute into individual eggs.
We like to grab our bulk candy from Sprouts as they have a bulk sweets section where we can use our own containers. It also helps us reduce waste because we only buy the amount we actually need and don’t let it go to waste. (we could eat a LOT of candy tho!)
A quick internet search (try Ecosia to plant trees!) for bulk candy store and you’ll likely find a nearby place to stock up!
Skip the Candy Entirely
Easter eggs and baskets don’t need to be filled with hoards of candy that you may or may not actually want your child to eat. You can opt for other fillers like snackable finger foods, small eco-friendly toys, books, and even money.
My mom used to fill a couple of our eggs with coins for our piggy banks! As a kid, I was always excited to shake an egg to listen if there was money in there!
Here’s a few more quick ideas for easter eggs or basket fillers:
- Small wooden toys – could be secondhand toys, too!
- Egg Shaped Chalk – fun activity!
- Wooden letters or numbers – my toddler is all for this right now!
- Wooden Alphabet Set – multiples of each letter for spelling words
- Stuffed Animals – recycled and sustainable materials made by Apple Park
- Fun shaped Crayons – melt down your leftovers or buy personalized ones
- Homemade Playdough – check out our recipe!
You can also fill baskets with experience gifts instead of actual objects.
Host An Eco-friendly Easter Party or Egg Hunt
When hosting a large or even small Easter event, choose more eco-friendly options over wasteful traditions.
If you’re hosting an Easter Egg Hunt, then consider hiding small wooden toys or wooden eggs instead of plastic eggs. You can even hide real eggs, if it’s a small group and the eggs can be refrigerated after they are found. Or make a small hole in the bottom of the shell and drain out the yolk and then boil them to clean them. Just make sure your kids know to be gentle with them afterwards as they are more fragile this way.
If there will be food at your Easter party, then consider how to reduce waste with this as well. For example, choose reusables over disposables such as your dishware and servingware. A big impact can also just be disposing of everything appropriately, so having options for compost, recycling and landfill.
Check out our 14 tips for hosting an eco-friendly party for more ideas. The same concepts apply even if it’s not a birthday party!
Use the Plastic You Already Have
The truly eco-friendly thing to do is to use what you already have. If you already have the plastic grass, then use the plastic grass. If you don’t, but want grass, then make your own festive grass filler using shredded paper, instead of buying more plastic. Earth Hero even has recycled shredded paper from Wrappily that would make a perfect eco-friendly Easter basket filler.
Repurpose Your Plastic Eggs
Have a lot of plastic Easter eggs already and don’t want to use them for Easter egg hunts anymore? Repurpose them instead of throwing them out! You can paint them and turn them into Easter decorations for your house. Try making a wreath, a garland, or even a table centerpiece.
Try Out An Eco-friendly Easter This Year
Holidays don’t have to be so wasteful and your eco-friendly choices have an impact. Hope these 7 ways help you skip the plastic and have a more eco-friendly easter this year!
Check out some of our other Sustainable Living posts and our other eco-friendly holiday ideas!
I hope these eco-friendly Easter eggs, basket fillers, and decorations help you to reduce your Easter holiday waste! Let us know what you think in the comments below!
Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through these links. Please note that I’ve linked to these products purely because I recommend them and they are from companies I trust. There is no additional cost to you.
