Tips for a sustainable Easter weekend
The Easter weekend is here, and with everyone staying at home, the celebrations may look very different to last year. But you can still have a fun sustainable Easter weekend, staying in and doing activities with (or without) the kids, using what you have around the house. Here are our favourite top 3 tips for a more sustainable Easter weekend.
Use vegetables, fruit and spices to naturally dye eggs
Using real eggs for an Easter egg hunt is a great way to use up those eggs and have a healthy snack for later. You could either hard-boil them for snacks or egg mayo sandwiches (a personal favourite), or you could opt for blown eggs and use the white and yolks in baking an Easter cake, or perhaps to make the ultimate pancake breakfast? The world is your oyster.
You can use a variety of vegetables, fruits and spices from your pantry to make the same colours you’d normally use food dyes for dying the eggs.
Red can be made using beetroot, or you could use left-over raspberries to make pink. Red onion skins can make a lavender shade of purple. Yellow can be made using ground turmeric, or for a more orange colour you could use paprika – or even white onion skins! Blue can be made using blueberries, or scraps of red cabbage from the Sunday roast.
Combine the colours in different ways to make all the shades of the rainbow.
You can find some handy recipes here for dying your own eggs naturally. When you’re finished with the eggs, you could use the eggshells to fertilise your garden, or to control those pesky slugs. Or, with the blown eggs, you could carefully halve the shell, and use them to propagate seedlings when growing your own produce or herbs at home.
Choosing your Easter treats more sustainably
There are a few different ways you can make sure you’re making more sustainable choices with the products you buy.
Opting for treats whose packaging is easier to recycle locally or through recycling initiatives, like foil-wrapped treats or purchasing multi-pack treats to reduce your plastic wastage.
Got a Kinder egg lover in the house? Use them in your Easter egg hunts and the small plastic case the toy comes in could be pretend eggs for your child’s imaginary/toy kitchen!
Choosing more sustainably sourced, fair trade brands is another good swap to make, as you’re supporting their cause and they’re just as tasty as the market leaders.
Or, use what resources you already have – root around in your cupboards and bake with your kids, decorating all sorts of cookies, cakes and bakes. It is a fun albeit, messy activity (but whose two-year old doesn’t like playing with flour?) and it will keep them occupied over the long weekend.
Craft Eco-friendly decorations
Another way to keep your children busy (or to have just a bit of fun if you’re like me) is to make homemade Easter decorations. And, depending on what you use, you can package these away and bring them out year after year.
Every year at Christmas and Easter, my mum used to make salt dough which we made decorations with. The dough is simple and easy to make, and once baked to a dry, hardened form these last for years – we still have some we get out each Christmas! It’s a great creative activity to do, for both young and old.
Some other crafty ideas are:
- Use clothes or fabrics that aren’t in a good enough condition to be donated and make your own bunting – or opt for the classic paper chains
- DIY Easter cards or posters to hang around the house, in the windows or post to relatives, friends or even those who are most in need of a smile
- Making decorations out of your waste – empty loo roll bunnies, or cardboard coloured eggs, you can either keep for next year or recycle later
- Paint blown eggs to make your own decorative display – use newspapers or, in my case, Who Gives A Crap TP wrappers, to use as bedding for your eggs
There are so many more things you could craft – all you need is a bit of imagination.
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