Sustainable party bag ideas to help you ditch unnecessary plastic

• sustainable
• zero waste

By Pamela Jolly 22 June 2023

The party bag is sometimes a last-minute afterthought in party planning, but this seemingly innocuous favour does need a little planning to avoid bags full of short-lived plastic. The Planet Ark team has you covered with these crowd-pleasing ideas.

The latest kids party is winding down, the candles have been blown out and you’re clearing away the mess. If your kids are anything like mine, it’s about this time that they start getting excited and linger expectantly in the hopes of collecting a party bag full of treats to keep the party buzz going all afternoon.

As an environmentally conscious parent, what can you provide in these bags that will be both well received and avoid adding to plastic pollution and landfill?

Here are a few ideas from the Planet Ark team.

Environmentally friendly party bag fillers

1.     A potted native

There are a wide variety of hardy native Australian plants that you can give guests as seedlings to take home and plant into their gardens. Species like Bottlebrush, Banksia, Spider flower, Kangaroo paw and Everlasting daisy are just some of the thousands of native species that can help provide food and shelter for Australian wildlife. In some areas, pots can even be recycled, see the PP5 recycling website for locations.

2.     Crayons and colouring books

You can buy a large box of crayons and give guests a special mix of colours with a store-bought colouring book or a few pages printed on recycled paper from the internet. Planet Ark’s National Tree Day activity book is super cute and packed with fun activities!

3.     Hand-made creations

If you’re crafty you might like to create something yourself for the kids to take home with them, like goodie bags made from fabric scraps. You can supplement with a notebook and some sweets.

Alternatively, your guests could create something as an activity during the party and take it home with them as a reminder of the fun they had. You might like to paint rocks, string shell necklaces, dye pillowcases or socks with food or flowers. The options are endless. Find more party inspiration here.

4.     Paper balloons

There are lots of fantastic Japanese paper balloons and decorations that you can gift to guests. Be sure to avoid giving plastic balloons as they have been found to be amongst the top three most harmful pollutants impacting wildlife survival along with plastic bags and bottles.

5.     Origami kits

Kids love the colourful designs on origami paper and can spend hours folding them into new creations or cutting and pasting them to create artwork.

Social media channels (including ours) are full of innovative ideas. We’d love to hear yours.

Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes