Eco-friendly Easter table decorations

A few weeks before Easter, stores fill up with tons of colourful decorations – plastic eggs, bunnies, chicks, flowers… The aesthetic effect may be appealing, but the environmental cost of this trend is very high. Celebrate Easter with care for water and nature – choose eco-friendly and sustainable decorations.

Natural table decorations

Family holidays call for a festive atmosphere, and after a long, gray winter, everyone is eager to welcome bright colours into their surroundings. However, your Easter table décor doesn’t have to reflect commercial trends, which often verge on tacky and excessive. Natural decorations not only help reduce emissions and environmental pollution but also bring authenticity and effortless elegance.

How to create an eco-friendly table setting?

• Plant grass or cress – all you need is a clay pot or plate, some soil or cotton wool, and a cheap packet of seeds. These green islands in the middle of the table beautifully symbolize the renewal of life!
• Cut a few branches – if done carefully with sharp pruning shears, it won’t harm the plants. Boxwood, forsythia, magnolia, or willow are perfect for bouquets or homemade Easter palm decorations.
• Choose bulb flowers – living crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils, narcissi, and tulips are the most beautiful Easter decorations. You can grow them indoors or in your garden. On the holiday table, they look stunning in a ceramic pot. After blooming, the bulbs can be replanted and will bloom again next season.

With a bit of creativity and skill, you can use twigs, willow branches, dried grasses, ivy, as well as feathers, flowers, and plant fibers to craft centerpieces, wreaths, and original hanging decorations for above the table.

How to prepare eco-friendly Easter eggs?

Colourful eggs are a true ornament of every Easter table. Unfortunately, decorating Easter eggs often involves using plastic sleeves or chemical dyes that end up in our water system. Multiplied by millions of households, the environmental burden becomes enormous.

How can you dye Easter eggs without chemicals or plastic? Use natural dyes:

• Yellow – water boiled with turmeric;
• Blue – a decoction of red cabbage leaves or water with spirulina;
• Green – spinach leaf decoction or water with chlorella;
• Pink – beetroot decoction;
• Golden – walnut shell infusion;
• Brown – onion peel infusion.

It’s best to combine natural dyes with vinegar before soaking the eggs – this will help the colors last longer. Finally, you can rub the eco-friendly eggs with a little oil and scratch traditional patterns on them using a needle or knife. Most importantly, these eggs are safe to bless in a traditional Easter basket and eat without worrying about harmful dye residues.

More nature means less waste!

Eco-friendly Easter table décor helps reduce demand for plastic and, at the same time, cuts down on waste. Every decoration comes in packaging, and when it gets boring or damaged, it usually ends up in the trash – and not all of it is recyclable! Natural decorations, on the other hand, can be eaten (eggs, cress) or composted as bio-waste.

Speaking of Easter and waste, it’s worth giving it some thought before heading out shopping. Wouldn’t it be better to put fewer products in your cart than to throw away excess food later? When shopping, don’t focus only on price and brand, but also on packaging – glass is always better than plastic, and plastic films and bags are often unnecessary, especially if you can buy by weight.

Remember that plastic recycling in Poland remains low, around 10–30%, and plastic that ends up in landfills eventually turns into microplastics and then nanoplastics, making their way into our water and food.