An Almost Zero Waste Easter

Trying to be as sustainable as possible turns one into a quasi-hoarder. I find myself holding onto all sorts of things and putting them into little piles to be recycled properly at a later date.

This also goes for planning for the future- including holidays. I'm constantly keeping an eye out in my Buy Nothing Group and when I go secondhand shopping for anything that I might be able to utilize in the future. It's a fun game to play especially when it's off-season.

This year Theo is old enough to start playing around with the concept of Easter and so I made him his first official Easter basket from all secondhand materials minus the candy, of course. I got the stuffed bunny and the puzzles from my Buy Nothing Group back in January and then hid them from his prying eyes. I've kept a lookout these past few months for plastic-free and organic Easter themed candy. Sadly, all I could find was one or the other.

I got plastic-free, foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs that came in a cardboard box from Trader Joes and then an organic, fair-trade milk chocolate Easter bunny from Whole Foods (we don't normally shop there) that was sadly wrapped in a plastic bag. After going to a few "health food" stores, I still could only find plastic-wrapped bunnies that were also organic and were not complete garbage chocolate. So, I made the choice to stop driving around (and wasting gas and time) and bite the bullet. I like that it's a small chocolate bunny as we try to limit his sugar and this already is A LOT of candy for a toddler. The basket and ribbon are reused and the fill is just old packing material. I'm really excited with how it turned out.

Other ideas for an almost Zero Waste Easter:

• The OG Zero Waster, Bea Johnson, got wooden eggs like these to fill with bulk store candy, money and other goodies then hide in the back yard for her children
  

• Buy bulk candy like naturally dyed and wax paper wrapped taffy and non-gmo, naturally dyed jelly beans and gummies

  
  

• Bake! Bake cookies, breads, muffins, etc. that have a Spring theme
  

• Hard boil eggs and then dye them naturally (and then eat them!)
  

• Go to secondhand stores for Easter baskets, fillable eggs, figurines, toys, etc. There is so much stuff in the world
  

• Give the gift of experiences instead of things that no one really needs. When Chuck was growing up, his parents would give him a gift of summer camp every Easter so he had something to look forward to leading up to summer break. We are excited to continue that tradition when Theo is a bit older and send him to camps around town like at the Kidspace Children's Museum

Happy Spring, Everyone!