Thinking of hosting a New Years Eve party? Celebrate the New Year sustainably with these helpful low-waste party-planning tips — from zero-waste invitations, decorations, and tableware — all the way to vegan food prep, sustainable alcohol, and post-party cleanup!
Plastic-Free Party Planning
New Year's Eve celebrations can get pretty expensive and wasteful — but with a few tweaks and a bit of forethought, you can have an unforgettable low-waste NYE party!
The first (and easiest) way to prevent waste is to send electronic invitations to your guests. Paperless Post and Pepixel have digital New Years Eve invitations to text or email your guests, or you can create a private event on Facebook!
Depending on how many people you invite, you’re probably going to need more dinnerware, cutlery, and napkins in advance. A simple and eco-friendly option is to use reusable or compostable dinnerware — like the EcoSouLife Reusable Cutlery.
Low-Waste Party Decorations
Typical New Year’s Eve party decorations are cheap, plasticky, and designed to be thrown out. This year, opt for natural elements, homemade decorations, candles and plug in Christmas lights.
We love the idea of swapping out plastic confetti for Compostable Leaf Confetti! All you need to do is grab some leaves from outside (the more colours, the better) and use a hole punch to create your own eco confetti. You could also press and dry some flowers to scatter around your vegan charcuterie boards!
To provide some light and ambience, Candles are your best bet. For outside, consider stringing up some Christmas lights or solar-powered outdoor lights.
Low-Waste Vegan Food
Feeding your guests doesn’t have to be stressful or expensive. In the weeks leading up to your NYE party, create a shopping list and a game plan for how you’re going to make, serve and clean up the food. As always, start with the dry shelf ingredients — source local and buy in bulk where you can.
If you’re having a grazing table, why not create a vegan charcuterie board? Opt for a mix of fresh and dry components: crackers, dips, nuts, bread, olives, grapes, dried fruit, fresh berries, vegan meats, chopped celery and carrot. To make your delicious vegan cheese, we recommend the Mad Millie Vegan Cheese Kit — you can make 7 different vegan cheeses with it!
To save time on the post-party cleanup, serve your dips straight in the Ever Eco Stainless Steel Mini Containers.
Sustainable Alcohol & Midnight Celebrations
Support wineries, breweries and distilleries that adopt sustainable practices, use renewable energy, opt for locally-sourced, organic ingredients, and reduce their packaging.
We’ve written about several breweries and wineries that are doing awesome things for the planet, like Young Henrys, Taylors Wines, Toast Ale and more. Some other Aussie eco-friendly alcohol brands include Antipodes Gin — Australia’s first certified organic and carbon-neutral gin, Stone & Wood — a B-Corp Certified brewery in Byron Bay, and Not Wasted Wine.
Love DIY projects? We have the Mad Millie Handcrafted Gin Kit, which makes a botanical London Dry Style Gin, and the Mad Millie Old Fashioned Ginger Beer Kit!
Post-Party Cleanup
We know that after a long night of celebrations, cleaning up seems like a daunting task. Obviously, leftover food needs to be addressed first! Encourage your guests to graze throughout the night and take home as much food as they can.
If you have a clean Compost Bin — ask your guests to pop their leftover food straight in there. Or, collect all organics in Compostable Bin Liners.
To store your leftover fresh ingredients, try the Green + Kind Reusable Silicone Food Pouches. These airtight pouches can be popped in the fridge or freezer. For any other leftovers, store them in the leak-resistant Ever Eco Stainless Steel Containers. For an ultra-speedy cleanup, cover your food with the Ever Eco Reusable Silicone Food Covers!
Hosting an eco-friendly New Years Eve party doesn't have to be difficult! All it takes is a little bit of planning to reduce unnecessary waste — whether it’s swapping out disposable plastic decorations for natural, homemade options, or storing leftovers and composting the rest. We hope you have a sustainable New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year!
For more eco-friendly tips to guide you through the festive season, check out the blogs below.
