Hosting an event – the eco-friendly way – part 1

Anytime there is a party or a potluck, it is really sad to see so many garbage bags full of single use cutlery & plates being thrown out. For the few hours of fun we have, we leave a mark that is going to stay on for years…probably outlive us even. When you want to make your next event eco-friendly the 3 main factors to consider are:

• Food & drinks
• Decoration
• Return gifts

Recently I got to co-host a friend’s baby shower at my home for about 35 adults & 15 kids. In this post, I am talking about alternative solutions I adopted to reduce plastic waste in terms of food & drinks.

I rented stainless steel serveware – plates, big bowls, small dessert bowls, spoons & water cups from this amazing group called GreenCell Atlanta. This is an Environmental Conservation Organization and as one of their services, they rent/loan steel utensils for free!
This is a popular concept in India now, and am sure major US cities will have something similar.
I would have happily paid the rent too if they had charged. As they don’t, I am planning on donate to them to get more quantities.
Search your area for such services. If you don’t have one in your area, use biodegradable plates & cups, so you don’t have to worry about recycling them.
Food soiled plates & cups are not recyclable.

Next, moving on to water & drinks.
This is the easiest. You don’t even have to rent or get anything fancy.
Use a good old drink dispenser with some paper cups instead of bottled water or sodas.
I usually keep water in one & some kind of juice in another.
For this event though I used this drink dispenser that I rented from GreenCell with ss water cups (which were later used for serving tea in the evening)

This is definitely the least you have to do, bottled water is such a waste.
I get mad when people take a couple of sips & abandon a bottle & later go pick up a new one because they don’t know which bottle is theirs among all the half empty bottles.

The catch with this was to ask people to wash their dishes after use (at least rinse & place it in a bin) Mainly because we had limited quantity of plates & had to reuse some of them and also to reduce post party cleanup. There was a Whatsapp group for coordinating this event & I informed about this
arrangement the night before & requested them to clean their dishes.
My friends were beyond awesome, they all cleaned theirs & whenever there was a small backlog in the kitchen sink, someone kept jumping in to clear it off too.

I can confidently say this was a big hit with many others wanting to do it for their next party. And this time, there was no walk of shame for me – carrying bags & bags of garbage out to the trash bin. Rather I marched out proudly
with just a small 4 gallon (biodegradable) trash bag that was also only about 3/4 full.