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Step 1
You can buy used Easter outfits for your kids and yourself. Your kids will probably only wear their Easter outfit once or twice in the entire year, so you should support stores that exist to keep items out of landfills. Within your household, younger children can wear their older siblings' Easter outfits from previous years.
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Step 2
Reduce your carbon footprint by buying items with minimal packaging and buying used items when and where you can. When buying treats to put in your child's Easter basket, consider the impact that those items will have on the environment. Buy items with the least amount of packaging. A foil-wrapped chocolate bunny, for instance, has far less packaging than a chocolate bunny that is foil-wrapped, boxed, and shrink-wrapped in plastic.
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Step 3
Use last year's Easter baskets this year. Establish a new family tradition, telling the children that they should put out their old baskets for the Easter bunny to fill with treats. If you don't want to change your family tradition, you can still use last year's basket by painting them or adding embellishments like ribbons or flowers.
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Step 4
Use plastic Easter eggs from previous Easters. It's a shame to use those plastic eggs and then throw them away after just a few hours of fun. Instead, make an effort of collecting them after your children have emptied them, and put them away with your household's Easter holiday decorations.
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Step 5
When decorating Easter eggs, buy certified organic eggs. Have your child decorate them by mixing up Easter egg dyes with food coloring and white vinegar. Alternately, you could have them paint the eggs with small paint brushes and food coloring. By not buying the "tradtional" Paas, Dudley, or other commercially-available Easter egg dyes, you reduce your carbon footprint by keeping waste out of landfills.
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Step 6
This year (and from now on), don't buy commercially-available Easter basket grass. That shredded plastic isn't biodegradable, and serves no other purpose. Millions of households buy it, use it for a day, then throw it away. Instead, use no grass at all, or get creative. You can shred your own paper if you're sure to recycle it after the holiday is over. Otherwise, buy a green-colored gift as a soft, protective layer to place all of the treats on top of. Some examples are green-colored organic cotton t-shirts, green organic beach towels, or any other similar-colored organic cotton item.
