The Easter baskets we're used to are filled with non-recyclable plastic eggs made in China, candies made with preservatives and food colorings and shipped from big box factories, with sell by dates months away from the time the hit the shelves of Target or Wal-Mart. The Easter baskets themselves are often made of plastic and made in countries that have human rights policies that make a thinking person think twice.
Green Easter Treats
Why celebrate this wonderful spring holiday with presents that are so Earth-unfriendly? Green ideas for Easter presents and Easter baskets are easy and more environmentally sustainable. Make it a point to reduce, recycle, and reuse. Have an old hand-woven rattan basket collecting dust in the attic? Dust it off, fill it with sphagnum moss (available at most garden centers) and tadah! - you suddenly have a green and very pretty gift basket for pennies.
Eco-Friendly Easter Presents
Forgo the vivid green plastic floss "grass" and instead fill your family and friends' spring holiday gift baskets with these cute, homemade green Easter treats:
- Home-made, chocolate truffles made with high-quality fair trade chocolate like Dagoba. Click here for more information on fair trade cocoa.
- Cute bunny and chick figurines painted by the kids and easily made from salt dough. For the salt dough (also called salt clay) recipe click here; its a creative Easter craft the whole family will enjoy.
- Avoid the made-in-China plastic eggs, unless you have saved and are reusing the ones from last year. They are not recylable.
- Color farm-fresh eggs; either blow them like Russian or Ukranian eggs for a delicate gift or hard-boil them for an Easter breakfast.
- Packets of seeds. More seeds, more pretty, shady, fruit and vegetable-giving, carbon-dioxide fixing plants and trees.
Reduce Easter Holiday Waste
The springtime holidays don't have to be a wasteful, plastic-grass frenzy of red-colored, high fructose-corn-syrup-filled jellybeans. Living a simpler, greener life means celebrating the springtime holidays more holistically. We all know most holiday decorations end up in the land fill so why buy them?
Homemade Easter Gift Baskets
Simple, cute, green Easter baskets are the ones already in the house. Candy and treats like the traditional spring party petits fours can be made from healthy, fair trade ingredients. The "grass" can be grass from lawn clippings or sphagnum moss both of which can be recycled into the compost pile.
Have your family lead the way to a greener, more sustainable Easter celebration for friends and family. The spirit of the springtime holidays is the celebration of the Earth and of the continuity of life.
