Zero Waste birthday party

At QZAR!

A week ago, one of my kiddos was invited to celebrate a birthday at Qzar!

Per usual, we offered to bring our #zerowastepartypack and to wash the dishes afterwards.

Before the food arrived, we set up all our containers and signs. Then asked the staff to remove the disposable paper plates and plastic cups and we set our reusables down. The time came for pizza, lemonade, and cupcakes. I LOVED that Qzar served lemonade and water in refillable pitchers instead of plastic bottles. The kiddos rather enjoyed having cloth napkins and they became impromptu birthday party hats.

Our little one came along and we made it a family outing of playing arcade games while the birthday gang went to do laser tag. Perhaps I have my dad and brother to thank, since I've always enjoyed arcades and love the competitive games, like MarioKart, skee ball, and air hockey.

The only things landfilled were the cupcake signs (because of the hot glue on the back), and the tiny white plastic tables that come with the pizza boxes (#PizzaGuys, are those really necessary?). The stainless cups, plastic plates, cloth napkins were taken home to wash. Paper napkins, cupcake liners, pizza boxes (because of the grease), and food waste were taken home to compost since Qzar doesn't have composting on site. Nothing recycled or "wish-cycled." Mostly reused or composted. Zero waste birthday party for the win!

As an aspiring minimalist, I sometimes think about how much easier and convenient it would be to do disposable not take on the extra labor... and not manage the inventory of all these reusables, but where does all that waste go? There is no "away" when we "throw away." Convenient may save ourselves time but it doesn't always equate to better.

While totally not expected, I love that the host embraced our party pack and helped with cleanup afterwards. She and her teen kids knew what went into compost as well. #teamworkmakesthedreamwork

If you want signs to include at your next party, you can download them here: https://tinyurl.com/zwpartypacksigns

#zerowastelife #zerowasteliving #zerowastebirthday #qzar #goingplasticfree #rethinkdisposable #reducereuserefill #reducereuse #compost #becomingminimalist