How to Throw an Eco-Friendly Earth Day Party

Throwing a party can be fun if you know how, and celebrating is great for family and friends. If you're feeling green and you'd like to throw an eco-friendly party to celebrate Earth Day, hopefully the tips in this article can help.

Earth Day is about getting back to nature and protecting our environment. Because of this, the party theme tends to be natural. This doesn't have to be troublesome! It's easy to throw an eco-friendly party to celebrate Earth Day!

Here are some tips:

Location, location, location: It's Earth Day, right? If the weather allows, pick some place green. Many national parks have free admission on or around Earth Day. If that won't do, but you're still looking to celebrate nature, many cities have local parks perfect for the job. Always check to see if you need a permit, and always have a backup plan in case the weather decides not to cooperate.

If you're going to host your Earth Day party indoors, decorations are easy. You can easily decorate your space with natural items such as seashells, flowers or leaves. Use your imagination. If you need to purchase party supplies, make sure they're eco-friendly, and remember to recycle. Eco-friendly centerpieces for tables can be either something "durable," which you can use for other functions, or something green, such as a bowl of fruits and vegetables. If you're going with flowers, potted plants are better, and don't forget to use eco-friendly dishware.

Invitations: Besides electronic invitations (green and eco-friendly by their very nature), you can also send out printed invitations. You can buy or even make your own eco-friendly recycled paper and print on it with soy or other natural inks. (My next article will be on making your own eco-friendly Earth Day party invitations, so stay tuned for some great - and green - ideas.)

Food: When planning your menu, try to steer it toward organic options and whole foods in eco-friendly packaging (or none at all!). This is so easy. There are so many fruit and vegetarian dishes out there to please every palate at the party, and it can be a lot of fun to try new recipes or dust off those spring and summer dishes. What better day to do so than Earth Day? Hit your local farmer's market to see what fruits and vegetables they have available for your Earth Day party. Shopping locally is very eco-friendly.

Keep them busy: Try some green activities. You can pick up trash or clean up a local area. You can also have a green-themed scavenger hunt or recycling party where you turn "trash" into crafts or something useful. Activities in the Earth Day or green theme are best, of course.

Clean up: An Earth Day party is probably the only party where you can get the guests in on the clean-up. Maybe some will take some of the decorations while others separate things for recycling or wash some dishes. Remember to try to leave everything as you found it, or better. It's a great way to get the kids involved and teach them a thing or two about going green.