Category Archives: Zero Waste Lifestyle

A Zero Waste Birthday – Is there such a thing? There might be but I still haven’t gotten there. My youngest son just turned 6 years old and we had his birthday party at our house this year.

Where we live it has become increasingly uncommom for parents to throw a kids birthday party at home. The trend is to rent out special venues that host your childrens birthday party. Most of these venues are all but ecofriendly, having the irresponsible throw away culture we have unfortunately gotten used to. Its a poor choice in regards to food quality and in sustainability.

I’m still getting used to being back in Porto after living in Italy for three years. I miss the sense of community, the parents engagement with each other, promoting events and days out for the whole classroom. Everytime there was a birthday party, all parents would join in for the entire afternoon. Here its extremely uncommon for this to happen – at least that’s my experience.

At home there is a bigger chance of reducing the amount of waste you create. I set the table without any tablecloth – that meant less washing. I used ceramic plates, silver cutlery and normal glasses and had to use paper napkins as I didn’t have enough cloth ones.

To drink there was water, lemonade and some juice, diluted with water and wine for the adults.

We are not vegetarians although we rarely eat meat at home, so to eat there were some fruit skewers, mini sausage rolls, bread with ham, chips, chocolate cake, cheese and bread, and another peach cake, which I didn’t manage to photograph :/

Not the healthiest of options but hey, its a special ocasion!

The birthday cake was just divine. It was freshly made of chocolate with a strawberry white cream. I used an old candle from my oldest son and placed some lego toys for some decoration. I think it turned out just great, and I’m hoping you agree with me.

So what are your thoughts on birthday parties? What other tricks do you use, please let me know, as I would love to improve next time!

Don’t beat yourself up if you forget that item, be it a napkin, a straw or a container so you can take home your lefovers, as the world won’t end because of it. At the end of the day millions of plastic packaging is going to be thrown out to the trash on that same day. But don’t let it make you surrender, because what we as consumers are doing is by far more important than the latter. We are the pioneers in an evolutionary change of consciousness. We are merely planting seeds, and just like seeds they might seem small and insignificant, but we all know what come out of them.

So next time you will do better. Next time you will be more organised and prepared for the unexpected, and this is what we must keep on saying to ourselves.

I am still learning as I guess all of you are but I would like to share with you my Kids Kit essentials when we’re out and about. (Please bear in mind that my kids are 5 and 8 yrs old so I’ve passed the nappy and the bring your own food for the baby phase!)

ZERO WASTE KIDS ESSENTIAL KIT:

1. REUSABLE WATER BOTTLE

I usually take one that’s big enough for both of them and they usually share it. We do refills from tap water if we need to.

2. REUSABLE STRAWS

This was a must item to buy as they would have a melt down everytime I would refuse a plastic straw.

All the drama has dissapeared and they do love using them.

3. CLOTH NAPKIN

I take a couple of cloth napkins so we cut down on our use of paper napkins.

4. CONTAINER/ LUNCHBOX

One thing I absolutely cannot bear is food waste. When we eat out all our leftovers come back with us in a small container. We strive to eat everything up but businesses keep pumping up the size of the individual portion. Sometimes depending on the place, we order the kids menu’s as they are substantially smaller or we order one plate for them to share. In Porto, where we live, there is a city hall campaign for restaurants to promote this action of taking home your leftovers, without any shame that might be associated with it. So in case you forget to bring along your container, the restaurant will provide you with a sustainable, biodegradeble option. I just love how they have set up an example!

5. ICE CREAM SPOON

After living in Italy for 3 years this was an essential 🙂 it was a always a struggle to refuse the plastic ones in our local gelataria. Most of the times we were unsuccessful, either they were to fast and stuck the plastic spoon on top, or they would use the plastic spoon to keep the icecream in place and just threw it out afterwards! It was painful, but eventually we were known as the ones who refused the plastic spoons, and would always receive a smirk from the owners.

So this is it. It doesn’t take much to cut out on some waste.