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DIYers and harried shoppers alike can add some eco-pizazz to parties, weddings, and other events with eco-friendly decorations and party favors. Whether you add a sustainable touch to tablecloths or give out gift bags filled with earth-agreeable goodies, you're likely to get green thumbs up from both Mother Nature and your guests.

How to decorate greenly

Does your party space need a little dressin' up before the guests arrive? Here are some great ideas to keep your bash green, yet fun and festive.

• Table fashions: Dress your table to the nines with eco-friendly, reusable table fashions including tablecloths, skirts, and napkins. Options made from sustainable fibers like bamboo, hemp, and organic cotton will amp up the greenness even more.
• Eco-dinnerware: Don’t clog your trash bin with disposable dishes, cutlery, and cups. Instead, choose table tools that are reusable, recycled, or biodegradable.
• Living decorations: Opt for live herb or flowering plants in pretty pots for centerpieces. Or, display an artful arrangement of branches and river stones from your garden or a colorful bowl of fruit.
• Organic bouquets: Can’t live without vibrant blossoms? Seek out organic or local flowers to add a bloomin' green quality to your event.
• Ban on balloons: Find alternatives to balloons, especially those released outdoors. Even when released far inland, balloons can travel hundreds and even thousands of miles, ending up in the ocean where they kill marine life. If you can’t live without them, choose to play with balloons indoors, being careful to dispose of them properly once the party is over (in the garbage, that is). Check out these safe ballooning tips for more wildlife-safe guidelines.
• Finishing touches: Add the final touches to your special event with eco-friendly party decorations. Instead of disposable streamers, opt for reusable ribbon, scarves, or beads. Light the room with natural candles, and opt for banners and signs that can be repurposed at future celebrations. If reusable items aren’t readily available, just be sure to opt for recyclable options—that means foil and vinyl balloons, signs, and confetti are out.

How to give green party favors

Planning a gift-giving portion for your bash? Check out these stylish, sustainable ideas. And when you’re ready to give them away, be sure to wrap eco-style! Send your party favors home in reusable fabric bags or recycled content wrapping paper.

Child-friendly favors

• Long-lasting fun: Choose a favor that’ll last a long time and be easily recycled or donated when it’s no longer interesting. Some ideas include homemade play dough, plant kits, sturdy wooden toys, or recycled-content playthings. In particular, stay away from toys that tend to break easily, especially those battery- or electricity-dependent.
• Green treats: Send ‘em home with fresh or homemade treats, like animal-shaped organic chocolates and fruit-filled cookies.
• Take-home projects: If your party involves green activities like planting herbs or baking cookies, send your guests home with their completed projects.

Adult-appropriate favors

• Eco-indulgences : Bestow guests with Fair Trade Certified chocolate or a bottle of organic wine.
• Personal treats: Stuff goody bags with scent-uous soy or beeswax candles or locally made, artisan soap.
• Living gifts: Send your guests home with the houseplant centerpieces you used as party decorations.
• Collect for charity: Let your friends and family know that you planted a tree or adopted an animal in their name through a wildlife conservation organization.

When everyone’s gone

• Recycle: Put disposable soda bottles, beer cans, and wine containers into your recycle bin along with any paper, plastic, and tin waste.
• Compost: Whether it’s leftover food or decorations, much of what remains can be composted. This simple act will cut your greenhouse gas emissions while producing rich, organic matter for your garden.
• Green clean-up: Wash your reusable table linens in natural laundry detergent. Your dishes can be soaped up using eco-friendly soaps, too.
• Away for another day: Keep and reuse decorations for future functions, like tablecloths, streamers, banners, and candles.

Find it! Eco-friendly favors and decorations

Before you buy

Green claims may not mean real-life eco-friendly products, so dig a little to be sure your purchase is truly green. A recent study by TerraChoice Environmental Marketing found that of the 1,018 products examined, all but one committed at least a few sins of greenwashing in their attempt to convince consumers that their product was greener than it actually was.

Need a little help distinguishing the true thing from the fakes? Check out this Responsible Shopper guide which'll give you the skinny on the social and environmental impact of major corporations. And check out What's Green? to find out how GreenYour chooses products.

Selecting green party favors and decorations helps you go green because…

• Reusable items require fewer resources over their lifetime than disposable options.
• Chemical and water use is reduced when organic agricultural methods are practiced.
• Recycling keeps usable resources out of landfills and prevents additional raw materials from being harvested.
• Alternative fibers (hemp, bamboo) need fewer chemicals and less time to produce.

Party favors and decorations are often discarded after the festivities, contributing to the mountains of landfill waste generated from all sources. This is particularly true during the holidays. Americans produce 1 million additional tons of waste every week between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.[1] A whopping 38,000 tons of ribbon is discarded in the US every year.[2] In 2006, over 251 million tons of garbage were produced in the US.[3] In total, each American resident generates approximately 4.6 pounds of garbage every day; more solid waste than the residents of any other country.[4] Canadians generate the next largest amount of waste, about 3.75 pounds each per day, whereas Germany and Sweden produce less than 2 pounds per day per person, the least of all the industrialized nations.[5]

Recycling and reusing decorations and favors turns what would otherwise be discarded into usable resources. Since some materials like aluminum can be recycled locally over and over indefinitely, the costs of transporting raw materials long distances for manufacturing can be reduced or eliminated, as well.

Recycling even plays a role in reducing emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Recycling programs are estimated to have kept the equivalent of 39 million car's worth of carbon out of the atmosphere in 2006, saving the equivalent of 10 billion gallons of gasoline.[4] When consumers purchase products made from recycled materials, they are not only saving valuable natural resources and energy, but are also supporting necessary markets for recycled materials.

Party decorations made with organic materials require fewer toxic chemicals to create. Alternative fibers such as hemp and bamboo grow rapidly, require little, if any, chemical additives for production, and are made using fewer non-renewable resources such as petrochemicals. Choosing sustainably sourced materials, such as FSC-certified wood, means supporting earth-friendly industries, which typically practice green purchasing and operational principles.

Reusing party decorations and wrapping means that no new resources or dangerous chemicals are used to make new products. It also prevents products from ending up in landfills where they can leach chemicals into the ground and water.

Ballooning blues

Second only to straws, balloons were the most abundant form of land debris found on a US beach clean-up conducted by the Ocean Conservancy between 2001 and 2006, making up 7.8 percent of the total.[6] This coastline trash has increased steadily over the past decade. Marine animals, including whales and dolphins, turtles and fish, can swallow balloons, often choking on them or starving to death.

The ribbons commonly found on balloons can also pose entanglement dangers to marine life. Some have argued that latex balloons, made of natural latex rubber, are biodegradable, and therefore not harmful to wildlife, but studies have indicated that balloons floating at sea decompose much more slowly than on land. Further, an animal’s digestive tract cannot break down a balloon in time to prevent it from causing the animal’s death.

External links

• The Rotten Truth About Garbage
• US Environmental Protection Agency - Let’s Go Green Shopping
• The Seattle Times - EcoConsumer: Throw a green party, and throw less away
• Green Girl Guide - How the Hell Does a Green Girl Throw an Eco-friendly Party?
• Crunchy Domestic Goddess - How to throw an eco-friendly party (with a giveaway)