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This week we had a
Birthday Party at home. I was thinking Vile Parle has a population of is
approximately one and half lakh persons. About 10 percent of this being children
under 6 years. So, about 15000 birthdays are celebrated every year. The cost of
birthday party in a restaurant or party hall works out to be about 25000 rupees
(minimum, it can go upto 75000) per birthday. That is parlekars spend about
3.75 crores on birthdays of under 6s every year.
Now if these parties
are done at home, to save money, then the major environment impact is through
the use of plates and cutlery. If household steel stuff is used, the water used
to wash them will be phenomenal 3.7 lakh litres to wash the plates alone. (I am
not going into the comparative carbon and water foot print of paper vs steel plates
now, more about that in another post later.) The other option is disposables.
Each party consisting of at least 25 people- it means about 30 plates, 30
spoons and 60 glasses. This means 4.5 lakh plates, 4.5 lakh spoons and 9 lakh
glasses or cups. All these will be sent to landfill if the material is neither
recyclable nor compostable. Another source of trash (non recyclable
noncompostible material) is cheap decorations...made of plastic, shiny foil,
thermocoal (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU TORANS) and Styrofoam. All these will go to
landfill.
I did not want to add to this dismal statistic
while I enjoyed myself. After all Birthday Party is for ‘Tum Jiyo Hazaro Saal’
and I don’t want to condemn that life as a life on a polluted planet. So I made
sure that my party was eco- friendly- means both economically and
environmentally. This is what I did-
1. Economics- Had
birthday party at home and invited only those who meant something to the
Birthday boy. No parents, none of my friends or relatives (just to earn social
brownie points). SAVED on Hotel charges, travel, taxes, DJ. I was the party
‘host’ and that money was saved.
2. Menu- the aim was to
have a process with least impacts and leftovers. I chose to order in- cooking
in larger batches saves fuel. I ordered kid’s favourites....so they eat well. I
discussed quantities with the caterer to make sure we did not order extra. I
got large 2 l bottles of soft drink.....bottles will be used in gardening
later.
3. Invitees- Sent
personal invites and got confirmed RSVPs so that exact numbers of attendees
could be determined....again to avoid wastage
4. Decorations- I used
only paper decorations—that went to recycling or compost. Pure latex balloons
are luckily easily available in Parle East and they will get into compost bin.
Music played with closed windows at moderate volumes to avoid noise pollution.
And used natural vapouriser to keep mosquitoes away
5. Cutlery- I got
sugarcane and wheat fibre plates....these are easier to home compost than the
areca plates which need shredding. But areca leaf spoons as edible spoons are
not available in Parle now. Paper cups for juice and water. Half went to
recycling and half I retained for making seed starting cups in my garden.
Tissues could go into compost bin. I was thinking of labelling the glasses with
the kids’ names to facilitate reuse, but I forgot about it. The cost was only
about 10 pc higher than the Styrofoam cutlery...already I had saved that much.
I used ordinary corelle bowls for serving.
6. Games and
activities- We looked up the net and chose group games requiring no props. The
kids were very sporting and joined in heartily....lots of fun.
7. Return gifts- Got
plastic water bottles that can be cleaned with hot water...much more eco
friendly than soap. Wrapped them in kite paper....easily compostable.
8. Gifts- I was happy to
discover that invitees turned out to be as thought ful...no duplications. And
all gifts were exciting, usable...no cheap china stuff. And that made them eco-
friendly
9. Cleaning up- We had
minimal left overs. We cleaned up immediately after party in half hour’s time. It
was 10 mins job to cut up the cutlery with scissors and put them into my
bokashi bin and compost pile. Food containers went into recycling, Ballons into
bokashi bin.
No sign of yesterday’s
party except for the Happy Faces! Money saved- 75%. Environment impact-
minimal. Effort- Minimal. Enjoyment- Full.
Money saved goes into
the youngster’s account and awaiting the Birthday compost to get ready!
Thanks for your comment.
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