Easter is coming up fast.  April 4 will be here soon enough.  If you celebrate this holiday, but you’re also concerned about the environment, you may be facing a dilemma.  After all, like most major holidays, Easter has been heavily commercialized, and the traditional activities require a lot of spending and create a lot of garbage, plus there seems to be an awful lot of sugar and artificial coloring around.

That’s bad news for anyone wanting to contribute less to the waste stream.  Having an Easter without these things can look difficult, if you just look at what’s available in ordinary stores.  So, what can you do to cut down your impact on the environment without telling the kids they’re going to have to give up Easter this year?  Let’s take a look at some of your options for an eco-friendly Easter celebration that’ll still be lots of fun, but won’t break the budget.

Why Choose An Eco-Friendly Easter

Easter can produce a lot of waste, and have a bigger impact on the world around us than it might seem at first glance.  However, the basic components of an Easter celebration don’t have to be ecologically problematic.  You can paint eggs, give treats, have an egg hunt, and enjoy yourselves without recourse to prepackaged, mass produced toys, candy, and kits.  The standard pre-made gift baskets usually have a high percentage of candy that kids don’t really like, and they produce a whole lot of waste.  The same goes for Easter themed toys and other goodies.

If you’re ready to give up shopping for Easter goodies at the big box stores, drug stores and dollar shops, there are plenty of environmentally responsible methods you can use to make great decorations and produce a fun easter basket the kids will love.  Most of them are wallet-friendly, so you don’t have to feel like being eco-friendly is for the rich, and they’re also a lot healthier than the old fallbacks.

Easter Eggs - Where To Get Them

Dyeing, hiding, and finding eggs is one of the big parts of Easter fun for many families, and there are plenty of easy ways to do with without waste or resorting to chemical heavy dye kits.  You can get just as many fun colors out of items you already have around your home, and they won’t affect the taste of the eggs at all.  All these items are cheap and easy to get, can be made into dye safely, and don’t have any unpleasant side effects.  Just use ingredients you already have in the fridge or the cabinets.

Choose free range, humane certified, or organic eggs to make sure that you’re supporting sustainable farming practices and humane treatment of animals.  They should be free of anti-biotics and hormone treatment.  Vegetarian diet eggs may be desirable, too.  Chickens aren’t vegetarians naturally, but this certification guarantees that the feed they’re receiving doesn’t contain the remains of other chickens in the form of “animal meal” and similar animal byproducts.  Since the conditions most supermarket eggs are produced in are not only inhumane, but creat enormous amounts of waste that often spills into water sources, supporting a more sustainable method is really the best choice.

If you purchase from a local farmer, you’ll be surprised at how inexpensive these high quality eggs can be.  Local farmers may offer sustainably produced eggs for half what they’d cost in the supermarket - if your supermarket offers these eggs at all.  Take a look around to see what you can find.  As an added bonus, almost everyone who’s tried a humanely raised egg says the same thing - they just taste better than the kinds of eggs you can get from battery chickens.  You’ll see a thicker shell and a richer yolk in these higher quality eggs, and they have a lot more of the helpful vitamins and nutrients that come from eggs.

Making Your Own Easter Eggs From Scratch

Vegans and those who’d rather not use real eggs can paint either porcelain eggs from the craft store, which make excellent keepsakes, or make their own out of a corn starch based play clay.  The recipe is simple and safe: cook a cup of baking soda together with one half cup cornstarch and three quarters of a cup of water in a sauce pan on low heat.  Stir frequently to avoid lumps till a mashed potato texture is obtained.

Then remove the pan from the heat and allow the clay to cool.  Place the clay on a floured breadboard and knead it until you get the right texture, adding more starch as required.  To tint the clay, knead a little food coloring in, but for painting eggs, you can leave it white.  Just let the eggs dry overnight and paint with ordinary children’s or craft paints.  Papier mache is another great way to make eggs you can keep, without the need to boil and eat real ones.  Just tear up some newspaper and use a mixture of flour and water to form it over a base.

Another fun egg related craft is making rainbow egg crayons.  Find all the crayon stubs that have collected over the past few months, then melt them carefully over the stove and pour into egg shaped molds.  The kids will love seeing their old crayons turned into a fun new plaything, and they’ll enjoy coloring, too.  Just make sure not to mix the colors thoroughly - you should see swirls of color in the hot wax - and allow the crayons to cool completely before allowing children to use them.

Egg Dye Recipes From Common Kitchen Ingredients

To get colors from plants for your egg dying, boil the eggs in a little vinegar, plus the coloring ingredient you’re going to use.  It’ll help keep any cracked ones from leaking into the pan, and it’ll help the natural dyes stick to the shell without adding any acid flavor to the egg.  You can also cook the vegetables separately and allow the eggs to sit in the liquid overnight.  Remember not to overcrowd the vessels, and strain the dye through a coffee filter to prevent speckling.  You’ll get nearly every color of the rainbow from easily obtained grocery store sources.

Concord grape juice or red wine makes lavender, while red cabbage combined with a little baking soda makes a striking shade of blue.  Use blueberries for a more purple shade of blue With vinegar, the cabbage makes a bright pink, or you can use beets or cranberry juice.  Parsley or fresh spinach leaves can be used to create green, and may not even need to be cooked.  Liquid clorophyll is another option for greens.

Citrus peels, carrot tops, yellow onion skins and turmeric all make attractive yellow to orange shades in different brightnesses.  Turmeric is probably the brightest, but it can stain countertops and utensils.  Red onion skins will produce a nice orangish red.  Strong or instant coffee and regular black tea both produce an attractive shade of brown, with coffee eggs tending to be darker, while tea eggs are a pale tan.  Walnut hulls can also be used to make brown, and were once one of the major components of writing ink.

For designs, just use crayons to draw on the eggshells before coloring to create an attractive resist pattern.  Older children can even try pysanky - the Ukrainian art of making beautiful eggs with beeswax and dye.  Only very simple tools are needed for this, though the presence of fire means you should be certain to provide adult supervision.  The results can be extremely striking, and offer something a little different from the same old Easter eggs!

Don’t Waste Eggs!

A remarkable number of people boil eggs and color them, only to throw them away.  This is wasteful and expensive.  If you’re going to have that big egg hunt, you should really think about how many eggs you need.  Don’t make more eggs than you’re likely to eat, and remember that you don’t have to eat them just as hard boiled eggs.

Egg salad, deviled eggs, tea eggs, japanese soy sauce eggs, and many other dishes can be made from those colored Easter eggs.  You’d be surprised by how versatile a regular hard boiled hen’s egg can be.  You can even blow the egg shells before painting or dyeing them, and freeze the content in ice cube trays for later baking or scrambling.

Easter Egg Hunts

Traditional Easter egg hunts used the dyed eggs themselves, but many people and organizations have moved away from this, and use plastic eggs with treats inside, instead of real ones.  A return to this practice will help you get even more fun out of your eggs.  If you don’t want to do that, there are some other alternatives to using those plastic clamshell eggs.

If the point of the game is to find the eggs, think about using non-edible ones, such as colorful felted wool eggs that can be used from year to year, or the homemade papier mache or play clay eggs mentioned above.  The kids still get the thrill of the hunt and of finding eggs, but neither you nor their bodies will have to deal with the sugar rush.

Easter Baskets

There’s more than just eggs to most Easter celebrations, too.  Easter baskets are a big part of the holiday, but the typical one is full of wasteful, mess plastic or paper “grass”, as well as mass produced candies.  Even the baskets can get wasteful and expensive if you decide to buy a new one every year instead of putting together your own.  Start out with one of last year’s basket, or even use rattan or wallpaper samples to weave a simple basket of your own.  Berry containers from the supermarket, attractive gift boxes and other things you may already have around the house also make excellent eco-friendly basket alternatives.

Use real grass or shredded paper you already have on hand to fill the basket.  Choose paper with compostable inks, and you’ll be able to toss the contents of the basket on the pile once the fun’s been had.  This is a much better choice than plastic Easter grass.  You can also fold some soft, pretty cloth in the bottom of the basket instead of grass to give the treats a place to nestle.  That’s reusable and a lot less messy than standard Easter grass.

Some also suggest using plain popcorn as a method to fill your Easter basket this year.  Air popped corn is best for this, since it starts out plain and uses very little energy to make.  Don’t salt or butter it, to avoid making a mess.  Just fill the basket with fluffy popped corn.  It makes a great snack, and any uneaten popcorn will feed the birds, squirrels and other animals or will compost nicely.

Pre-filled Easter Baskets

Those who prefer to buy their Easter baskets, but want to get the best and avoid the standard commercial fare may wish to think about buying natural and Fair Trade baskets.  It takes a little bit of extra planning, since a significant majority of these need to be ordered from online retailers, but the quality of the treats inside is much higher, and the baskets are completely guilt free.  Look for premade baskets that feature the least possible packaging, and that use quality materials.  The basket is reusable, after all.

Remember to place your order well in advance, so you won’t end up special ordering it and paying a rush charge for shipping at the last minute.  High speed shipping uses much more fossil fuel and produces much more emissions per package sent.  Take some time, plan well, and have any mail order gifts sent the slower way to have the least ecological impact with an ordered Easter basket.  The company you’re ordering from will thank you, too, and your basket is more likely to be correct if it isn’t assembled in a rush.

Easter Goodies

Most Easter candy isn’t very healthy, ecologically friendly, or particularly tasty.  There’s a lot of sugar, that’s certain, but a great deal of the candy on the market can’t even legally be called chocolate!  A lot of commercial chocolate also comes from sources that may be using child labor and unfair working conditions.  Instead, look for fair trade, organic, or locally produced chocolates and hard candy.  There are more out there than you’d think.

Sweet treats from healthier, organic sources have come a long way from the carob drops many of us remember from years ago.  Lollipops, jelly beans, hard candies, chocolates and more are available from local and organic candy makers.  They’re ready to compete with their commercially produced cousins!  For older kids, there are even make your own chocolate kits.  You can use cocoa butter, sugar, and other materials to produce eight ounces of high quality, Fair Trade chocolate in your own kitchen.

Raisins, dried fruit such as papaya, mini-pretzels and stickers are also fun things to include in a basket that aren’t candy.  Many kids will be upset if there’s not at least a little sugar in the basket, but it doesn’t have to fill up the whole thing!  You could even give gifts of money, like state quarters or an old silver dollar, or fun project supplies like garden seeds.  If you decide to use regular commercial candy, look for quality, and choose candy your child really likes, not just candy he or she will eat.  Choosing sweets that come with a minimal amount of packaging is also important.

When it comes to toys, clothes, and other non-food easter goodies, choose fair trade, locally made, or other labels when possible.  When these can’t be found, look for quality construction and make sure you’re picking an item that’ll last, not be tossed after a short time.  After all, an Easter gift is one that should be worth keeping.  Fun gifts that will get used, like egg shaped sidewalk chalk, are an excellent choice for people who want to give something other than candy, but don’t want to contribute to the waste stream.

Some people give live baby rabbits, chicks, or ducklings at Easter time.  This may be a cute practice, but it’s one you should stop if you’ve ever done it.  Unless you’re interested in adopting these animals for life and giving the kind of care and home they need, you’re contributing to the problem of homeless animals.  Since many shelters are already full to capacity, and the environment is full of feral animals, this is a real problem.

After Easter, rescues and shelters are full of unwanted rabbits and other animals, and still others are released into the wild.  These creatures don’t have the instincts or experience to survive, so they’re quickly killed by cars or predators.  If you must give a rabbit this year, make sure it’s a cuddly stuffed bunny, not a live one.  Spread the word to people you know that live pets are a no-go, too.  Your local shelters, and the pets that don’t get abandoned, will thank you.

Still want the kids to experience the fun of chicks and bunnies for Easter?  You can do it without treating an animal like a disposable commodity.  If you live in an area where there’s a petting zoo or a farm open to the public, chances are that they’re going to have an Easter event.  Your local church may also have an egg hunt and events where animals will be present.  Kids can take a look at them, hold them (gently and with care) and get all the fun of interacting with these animals without contributing to the problem.

If you’d really like to add a pet rabbit, duck, or chicken to your household, wait a little while to do it.  After Easter, you and the kids will be able to select from the many animals which were abandoned by others after the holiday was over.  Giving these creatures a loving home is a wonderful thing to do, and a good way to get a great pet.  Check local rescues or humane shelters, or use an online service such as Petfinder.com to let you know which animals are available in your area.

Be Creative!

The most important part of having any holiday is thinking outside of the box is to be a little bit greener.  If you’re willing to use your creativity and take a second look at items you already have around your home, chances are that you’re on your way to a better, more ecologically friendly Easter.  This approach works for any holiday, or even day to day life.  If you take the time to think carefully about your actions and their potential impact instead of going with the flow, you’ll cause a lot less damage to the environment and the world around you.  Plus, you’ll be helping teach your children the benefit of treating their world with respect.  That’s one of the best Easter gifts you could give!