As with most public holidays and traditional celebrations these days, Easter has become a very commercialised time of year. Even before Valentine’s Day you’ll start to spot chocolate Easter eggs in the shops. You’ll also see lot’s of bunnies and chicks everywhere. If you have children then celebrating Easter and getting involved in some Easter traditions can be a lot of fun. It is possible to have an eco-friendly Easter celebration, so here are some do’s and don’ts if you want your Easter Sunday to be more sustainable.
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Easter Traditions
The first things that come to mind are Easter egg hunts, the Easter bunny, decorating eggs, chocolate eggs, a lamb dinner and chicks. If you’re planning an eco-friendly Easter you can choose one or two of these traditional ways to celebrate or all of them. There’s always an eco-friendly alternative available.
Although for many people religion is not the reason they eat chocolate eggs or get involved in any of the other traditions; eggs, chicks and lamb are all representations of new life, with lamb additionally being a nod to Jesus being the ‘Lamb of God’ and a sacrificial lamb.
Christians also refer to Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God’ (…) Jesus was a sacrificial lamb, after all.
And seeing as Easter is all about letting Jesus die and eating of his body, which he literally told his disciples to do on Maundy Thursday, it’s no wonder lamb ends up on the table.
– Why do we eat lamb at Easter
How To Have an Eco-Friendly Easter
Let’s start with the most popular part of a modern Easter – chocolate eggs!
Easter Eggs
The less packaging the better and obviously buying a chocolate egg with no plastic packaging at all would be best. In the past buying an egg with no plastic window or plastic insert to keep the hollow egg from breaking would have been very difficult. These days companies are aware that consumers care about the environment and you can fairly easily find options in all the popular supermarkets. Another thing to consider when buying chocolate is how ethical it is. Check out the most ethical supermarkets in the UK and look for fairtrade chocolate wherever possible.
Apart from the usual supermarkets and local wholefood shops, where you can find some fairtrade and plastic free options, why not try the following… Especially if you want to send an Easter egg to a family member.
- The Ethical Superstore. They have a variety of eggs available; some with plastic free packaging, or made with organic milk, fairtrade and vegan options.
- The Vegan Kind. An online supermarket where everything is vegan. They have a great choice of easter eggs and chocolate available.
- &Keep. All of the chocolate is vegan and the packaging is always plastic free. They have a lovely organic vegan chocolate that comes with a gift set of 6 rabbits. Very appropriate for Easter!
Easter Egg Hunt
An Easter egg hunt is a great way to keep small children occupied for a while. You don’t have to spend loads of money or time to organise an easter egg hunt. The tradition is for each child to hunt around the garden for eggs and to use a basket to keep all their ‘treasure’ safe.
If you have small baskets that you can use that’s great, but it doesn’t have to be a basket. For example you might have some bucket and spades for beach trips. The bucket is a great alternative to a basket. You can decorate it if you like (with things you already have in the house for optimal eco-friendliness!), or just leave it as it is. If all your buckets are the same colour and you have loads of kids to keep track of, tie a coloured ribbon around the handle or just write their name on it.
If you don’t have baskets or buckets any kind of bag you already own is more than good enough. The kids only care about the eggs not what they’re carrying them in! As long as they have something to carry the eggs they’ve found, the kids will be happy.
Tips for an eco-friendly Easter Egg hunt
- Use what you already own to carry the eggs. If you don’t have anything suitable buy something that can be used for something else – a bucket and spade that can also be used at the beach is one option.
- Buy smaller chocolate eggs for the hunt. The more eggs you have the longer the children will be occupied. Save the big eggs to prevent tantrums later on in the day.
- The chocolate doesn’t all have to be eggs, although they are more appropriate. Buy small chocolate bars or chocolate bunnies maybe?
- Buy ethical and plastic free wherever possible. You can even get vegan creme eggs these days!
- Keep track of where you’ve hidden the eggs. This is especially important if you have to have the hunt indoors due to the weather or lack of a garden. You don’t want to find melted eggs in a cupboard weeks or even months later.
Decorating Eggs
Real Eggs
This one is not for vegans. The first thing anyone should think about when purchasing eggs is to buy free range. If you live in a relatively rural location why not buy eggs from one of those roadside stalls with an honesty box? The chickens are likely to be treated a lot better than those that supply your local supermarket.
Before decorating the eggs it’s probably a very good idea to hard boil them. It’s normally children who decorate eggs and you don’t need broken raw eggs all over your kitchen. I don’t believe in unnecessary waste so you should try and plan a way to use the eggs after decorating. Egg sandwiches for lunch maybe?
Once you’ve boiled the eggs and allowed them to cool it’s time to decorate them. You should be using non-toxic and harmless materials, rather than glitter or anything else that could end up in your egg sandwich after picking off the decorated shell. You could paint the eggs with non-toxic water colour paints. Alternatively you could use bits and pieces of material to ‘dress’ your egg. Just an eco-friendly glue if you want to stick material on your egg.
Wooden Eggs
If you don’t like the idea of eating eggs you’ve decorated, or if you’re vegan, you could purchase some wooden eggs to decorate. You might think this is just wasteful, however you could ask your child to decorate one egg per year and then each year you have a new decorated egg to add to your Easter ‘display’. I like this idea at Christmas too, where each year your children can make one new tree decoration (rather than purchasing expensive or plastic baubles).
- Wooden Egg Decorating Kit – buy a set of wooden eggs, and just decorate one egg per year per child. That way they aren’t ‘single use’ and can be enjoyed for years to come.
Other eco-friendly Easter decorations
Decorating at Easter is not a hugely popular thing unless you own a shop it seems. However there are some fun ways to make Easter themed decorations. You could keep it nice and easy and make some easter themed bunting. Fabric bunting can be reused every year and your children might enjoy making various shapes to hang from string. You could cut out egg, rabbit, lamb or chick shapes or make traditional pennant shapes but add letters to read Happy Easter. Again it’s a great way to keep children occupied for a while by doing some arts and crafts.
Some things I’ve found to make that I absolutely love are:
Easter Food
As mentioned before the obvious Easter food, excluding chocolate eggs or bunnies, is lamb. If you are a meat eater and want to cook a lamb dinner for Easter, try to support a local butcher rather than buying the lamb from a supermarket. Buy UK lamb to reduce the carbon footprint of the meat.
If you’re vegetarian or vegan you can still have a traditional (ish) style Easter dinner. It’s very easy to make a stew. Just adding rosemary to the stew and a bit of lamb sauce to your plate will prevent you from feeling left out if the rest of the family are eating lamb. I use this recipe from Jamie Oliver to make stew, I don’t add the meat and include everything else. I have it with mashed potatoes and green beans and absolutely love it as comfort food on a miserable day.
Live Animals
Some people think it’s a good idea to buy rabbits or chicks at Easter because they’re cute, but as usual, they often realise that animals are a lot of work and many animals can end up being abandoned shortly after the Easter break. Buying live animals at any time of year is a commitment, just don’t do it unless you really want an animal for years to come. If you plan on taking your children to visit the Easter Bunny at some organised event they might have rabbits, lambs or chicks that your children can hold or see up close. Find out before going where the animals have come from and what will happen to them afterwards before giving unscrupulous people your money.
Having an eco-friendly Easter is as easy as having any other eco-friendly celebration – it just takes a little bit of extra thought.
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