I recently had the pleasure of throwing a party at my home
for my son’s first birthday. We all know a first birthday party is really for
the parents to celebrate keeping their sanity during the first year, but I
digress. I have thrown many parties before, so I am a seasoned veteran of most
green things you can do for a party. For example: I have washable plastic
plates, reusable silverware, re-usable table cloths, recycle bins, drinks that
are served in re-usable glasses, and other beverages that come in recyclable
containers. Rarely is there much waste at a party at my house.
Now, did I mention that this birthday party was HUGE? I have
never had 65 people at my house for a party before. Nor did I ever have to
figure in the catering fiasco. Does the chicken really have to come in a paper
box that I can’t recycle due to grease? Why does the shredded beef have to be
shrink-wrapped in plastic? And don’t forget the “mom factor”. This refers not
to me but to my mom who can find a way to get involved in anything. She did
find some awesome pop-up
recycle bins that we were able to use in various places in the yard and
garage (and are reusable for future parties I might add). But she also wanted
heavy duty paper plates, plastic silverware, and way more paper napkins than I
will use in a lifetime.
So, what do you do in a situation like this? How do you find
a balance between convenience and over the top environmentally minded? Blending
the two and taking a few small steps toward a greener solution can help take
this daunting task and make it a smaller more manageable one.
I ended up using
paper plates because the alternative was to buy 50 more washable plastic ones
that I would probably never need again and are made using non-renewable
resources. We donned the plastic tablecloths, half of which we saved and are
using again for our much smaller 4th of July BBQ. Plastic silverware was the unfortunate best
option due to the number of people and kids running around and also not wanting
to lose my real silverware to the trash. But there is an upside! Some of the
food was made by me and family members and was served in reusable containers. Some
of the catered food came in aluminum trays (which we know to be recyclable).
The leftover food was able to be taken home by guests in recyclable aluminum
to-go trays (thanks for finding these, Mom!). Most of the decorations were
paper and were promptly recycled. All the drinks were in reusable cups or in
containers that ultimately ended up in the recycling as well. And of course, we
can’t forget the presents! All of the wrapping paper was recycled and we are
saving the gift bags to use again.
At the end of the party we ended up with two 33 gallon
garbage bags, and nine 18 gallon recycle bins over flowing! I see more trash
than that in a week at some houses in town so I think we did pretty well. Were
there things we could have done better? Sure. I had a nightmare about the
amount of trash we did have if I am going to be completely open and honest.
The biggest hurdle was trying to inform guests about what to
recycle. As much as I would love to believe that everyone I am related to and
friends with recycles, I know that is simply not the case. At the end of the
night, if you had driven by, you could have seen my husband and me digging
through trash and recycling and moving things to their correct bins. That would
have been a great picture to put on facebook. Luckily no one captured that
photo… as far as I know.
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