Party with a conscience
Celebrate without causing any damage that lasts longer than a hangover.
Kitiya Palaskas knows how to have fun. The Melbourne-based author of Piñata Party has made giant festive decorations in the shape of rollerskates, cocktails and a donkey (“it was so big you could actually sit on it,” she says).
As a professional party-starter, Palaskas is an expert at having a good time, but she’s also aware that the practice could more eco-friendly. Her sustainable party service sidelines disposable wares and the wasteful side of celebrating.
Consult Palaskas (kitiyapalaskas.com) and she’ll be ready with her set-ups, retro and reusable props, stylish serving ware and colourful decorations.
She has plenty of green tips: use honeycomb balls, paper garlands and fresh flowers rather than balloons (the CSIRO regards them as one of the biggest threats to marine life), and if you’re going to stuff a piñata before joyously smashing it open, go for “paper over metallic confetti and glitter – always”.
In other party news, this was the year that plastic straws started vanishing from bars. In Australia, The Last Straw worked with 474 venues to prevent 20 million straws from ending up in drinks. In August this year, the Sydney Opera House went plastic-straw free, which will result in millions of straws being diverted from landfill and oceans annually.
Billy Crellin, an artist at Adelaide’s
Jam Factory ( jamfactory.com.au), has his own solution: colourful tubes made from glass. “The technique is so old that people in Germany have the last name ‘tubemaker’,” he says. (That’s Röhrer, if you’re wondering.)
Looking around at the world’s sustainable celebrations, the use of plastic utensils, cups and plates will be phased out in
France by 2020.
And from Japan, the Wasara tableware range, which is made from fully compostable sugarcane fibre, can hold hot food and liquids for up to six hours before softening. It’s an elegant upgrade on age-old green party tips, such as on writing your name on a plastic cup (epicuretrading.com.au).