Not celebrating a birthday is I think the most eco-friendly option. But why not take the day to champion the cause and showcase a day’s lifestyle that is in tune with nature. The possibilities are endless. There are innumerable ideas and tips on celebrating eco-friendly birthdays.
http://www.naturemoms.com/blog/2007/06/13/eco-friendly-birthday-party/
My protocol of a most eco-friendly birthday embraces changes in the venue, decorations, menu, cutlery, fun activities and most importantly, the gifts and the return gifts.
Be it a nearby park to which you and your friends walk down or a zoo to which you go cycling, it is the venue that sets the stage for the deviation you intend. Celebrating your birthday with grandparents at native villages is also a good thing to do. Sanctuaries, resorts, rivers and oceans, hills and mountains, valleys, deserts and the like are of course perfect locations. Even when you make it indoors, innovative decoration makes all the difference. A rich variety of leaves, flowers, feathers and shells adds color and life to a party. For example, Heliconia is a spectacular plant to make colorful festoons. In fact, it is when I first saw the Heliconia inflorescence that the idea of eco-friendly birthdays occurred to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heliconia_pendula1.jpg
Using such plants and flowers for decoration and having fun activities based on them could bring people closer to biodiversity. Children might find it more fascinating than the plastic toys to which they are used to since their childhood and the older generation might get a chance to reconnect to their nostalgic childhood. Fighting with Gulmohar (Flamboyant) stamens was no less exciting than beyblade fights and decorating a palm leaf puppet was no less engrossing than dressing up a Barbie doll.
Biodiversity based menus are a perfect fit for birthdays and children will slowly learn to develop a taste for the real good natural food. Asking a local organic store to organize a demo on a birthday is a win-win option. Choice of cutlery alone can make a huge difference, by just avoiding the plastic tumblers, plates, spoons and other disposable items. Edible cutlery presents an excellent alternative, especially when you are partying in natural environs, you needn’t have to leave the garbage around.
http://www.startupdunia.com/india-startups/go-green-with-edible-cutlery-2220Even the theme of the birthday could be biodiversity. Asking people to recognize the seeds, flowers and leaves of unconventional and underutilized species could be a very meaningful fun game.
It is certainly an entertaining way to get to know the rich biodiversity and celebrate this year’s theme of the World Environment Day (WED) - ‘Many Species. One Planet. One Future.’ which focuses on the central importance to humanity of the globe’s wealth of species and ecosystems, and supports the UN International Year of Biodiversity.http://www.unep.org/wed/2010/english/blogging.asp
Gifts and return gifts could be the most thoughtful ones that reflect your taste, passion and ingenuity with which you had collected them throughout the year. Traditional wooden toys, toys made of recycled or eco-friendly
materials are ideal. Seeds, plants and pets are even better. Seeds – icons of beginning can very well mark the beginning of a birthday celebration in the form of plantable invitation cards. When it comes to invitation and greeting cards, the eco-friendly ones offer a stiff competition to their conventional counterparts.http://www.custompaper.com/invitations.html
