What is your eco-friendly nightmare? Mine is a celebration, be it a birthday party, a wedding function or even a small get-together, plastic is the most celebrated guest in all the events. Birthday themes are shouting enthusiasm paired with high doses of single-use plates, glitter, balloons, face paints, tables, chairs plastic, plastic & a lot of PLASTIC.
But try imagining a house birthday party without balloons or glitters or single-use plates, It’s simply impossible. Well, for this small family organizing a party devoid of plastic was not a big deal. The Bajaj of Faridabad made the possible out of the impossible. They celebrated a fully plastic-free unique birthday party, and it was a blast even bigger than the bashes filled with balloons and party poppers we usually attend.
Eco Friendly – Birthday Theme
Kabir Bajaj is just 9 years old but he is much more responsible than many of us when it comes to taking up responsibility. He took the accountability of being a conscious human being and demanded to celebrate his 10 birthday plastic-free. Much credit for this decision can be given to the lifestyle he lives in.
The Bajaj family is an environmentally conscious family, practising a sustainable, plastic free and environmentally friendly life. Be it Amita, Kabir’s mother who uses only cloth bags while shopping or Kabir’s father, who try to use things made in India as much as possible.
The family culture is so obstinate that the youngest member of the family, Samar who is just 4 years old, understands that fishes are important and they must not eat plastic. So, now we understand why Kabir must have demanded a plastic-free birthday. You can live an eco-friendly life to Embark Upon Your Guilt-Free Green Journey With 10 Easy Lifestyle Changes
They take easy measures to live sustainably, such as reusing, recycling, and utilising fewer resources overall. However, choosing to celebrate a birthday, in the same manner, was something new to them as well. The theme of this birthday party was not superheroes or sports or big guns, it was something that will make you wonder if the family is really lunatic or ” this family is super cute”.
Handmade Decor
The market is short on plastic-free products and therefore the concept of celebrating festivities without leaving any carbon footprint is not a common thing. The family anyways did a market hunt to collect things that are plastic free, but it broke their enthusiasm to realise that there are no plastic-free decorations available for birthdays. All the decoratives that were available in the market were filled with plastic. The family was really upset with the fact that to have a fun birthday party they will have to use plastic.
They started looking for ways to avoid as much plastic as possible and then struck the most amazing idea to avoid plastic decorative. After days of brainstorming a brilliant idea struck them, “how about we theme the party in the village?” Village life is all about living with simplicity and being close to nature. With this birthday theme they decided to make all the decorations by themselves, things like toran, paranda, Banderwal etc were now their decorative and of course they all are made plastic free. They had a super cool scarecrow family as the photo booth, I am stealing that idea for my next party for sure.
The artist in Kabir’s mom came to aid. Amita was ‘the hands’ of this birthday party. Lily, a close friend of Amita helped her design the decorative. Both friends sourced various ideas from the internet to create cute & impressive decorative ideas. They made the best out of waste and used discarded deewali decorations, paper and cloth for decorating the whole venue. They decided on a farm in a neighbouring village for this special birthday theme. It’s Amita & Lily’s hard work that gave the village theme a life live touch.
Replaced Plastic Crockery With Steal
Eliminating plastic was a difficult undertaking; even if they got rid of the plastic decorations, the setting would still need to be managed and plastic chairs were inescapable for the sitting but with this unique birthday theme – village, this problem was also solved. They chose the most realistic sitting setup of a village “the charpai! Cots and wooden stools were used for the seating of their guests.
Single-use plates and glasses were other items that were challenging to get rid of. But a friend who operates a crockery bank, dropped in and suggested that she can give them some of her steel crockeries. The crockery bank initiative by Tulika is a novel effort to decrease the consumption of single-use plastic.
Bachpan ki Yadden
It can be said that Kabir’s birthday party was a small “Gavn ka Mela“. It had activities like horse riding, ring the target games, tractor rides, pottery making etc. All the friends of Kabir loved the potter sitting with his plate for them to make their own pots and cups.
Colourfully flag decorations and scarecrows were the things that we saw growing up in our agrarian village of Haryana, this birthday theme was a walk back to our “Bachpan Ki Yadden“
Amita bajaj
The bajaj family was able to pull an exclusive experience for their guests. Most of these ideas were inspired by the childhood memories of Kabir’s parents.
The kids living in NCR had a tractor ride for the first time & some of them saw a porter for the first time. Friends of Kabir were like ‘Alice in the wonderland”.
Responsible Citizen
The family’s zeal for living a plastic-free life is simply outstanding. The success of this birthday party showed a marvellous example of what responsible citizens live like.
The struggles were real in pulling this eco friendly birthday theme party, the market is short on plastic-free products, there were no plastic-free decorations in the market, and they spent days looking for things that fit their motives. But in the end, Kabir had a ” happy” birthday.
An Ocean Of Small Steps
The inspiration was not pulled in a day or two, everything was the result of their daily life. The family strictly believe in living a sustainable and plastic-free life.
One person is not enough to change the whole world but one person is enough to change the world around himself.
Amita Bajaj
The family turned all responsible 4 years back when at the suggestion of a friend they attended a tree plantation event, it was blissful and felt great but the couple realised that everything was more for social media than for the earth. Not a single tree survived as no further care was given to the saplings, All the people in the campaign got busy with life and forgot about the little green babies they sew in the soil.
It was at this moment, the family decided to do little things for nature instead of flaunting bigger moves to the world. They began by developing an organic farm and engaging in healthy eating habits. The family keep a check on little things like reusing wastewater from the water filters into moping and washing. Follow slow fashion, upcycle old bedsheets into cloth bags and much more.
Their efforts are not in vain, people around them are greatly impacted by their small steps, some of the people of their society now segregates dry and wet waste in order to manage waste. Kabir has always been interested in promoting nature and a lifestyle that is nature friendly. Kabir and Samar are going to be the kind of adults we need for happy earth, many thanks to their parenting.
Indeed the family is an inspiration. Kabir’s plastic-free birthday theme deserves all the love and appreciation. Happy Birthday, Kabir thanks for showing us the best ways to grow up.
If you loved reading about Single-Use Plastics Ban, click to know more and read out our previous articles on the single-use plastic ban in India
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