7 Zero-Waste Challenge Activities With Your Kids by Isabelle Nougier-Gallen
At home, we try to live by the 5R Rules and what we love is how fun it can be!
We were locked down in France for 3 months and we used this family time to organize a Zero Waste Challenge. The idea is simple: for each room of the house, we decided to Reduce, Reuse and/or Recycle thanks to a DIY activity. Here are some super-achievable activities you’d love to share with your kids!
1- Kitchen Mission: your own Bee Wrap
I really love using them to wrap my dishes or my son’s snack for school. You can use any fabric you have (scraps of clothes such as old sheets are perfect).
What you need:
- different sizes of fabrics (with cute and pretty patterns)
- 2 baking paper sheets (5cm longer than your fabric)
- Beeswax (I prefer them in chips)
- Your iron, the ironing board and a cloth to protect the board
What you do:
- After protecting the iron board with the cloth, put the fabric in the center of a baking paper sheet
- Sprinkle the fabric with the beeswax (you don’t need to put it everywhere; it’s going to spread with the heat)
- Cover with the other paper sheet.
- Help your kid iron the paper sheet at a smooth temperature. You’ll see the wax melting and covering all the fabric (don’t hesitate to add some more wax if some areas aren’t covered)
- You can lift the paper sheet and let your brand new bee wrap get cold
You now have a waterproof fabric to wrap your food. You can easily wash it with some soap and cold water!
2- Bathroom Mission: Solid Body Balm
This is a very fun activity for a very basic organic body cream (not as fantastic as Baeo products but fun to do and use)
What you need:
- 1 tablespoon of Org. Olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of Org. Shea butter
- 1 tablespoon of Org. Coco oil
- 1 tablespoon BeesWax
- Some essential oil if you want to perfume your balm (lavender, tee tree, lemongrass, violet…)
- moulds (I use my smallest silicone muffins moulds)
What you do:
- Pour all the ingredients in a small pot
- Place it in a water bath to smoothly melt all the ingredients
- Add a few drops of essential oils for fragrance
- Pour all the liquid balm in the moulds
- Let the balm cool off and harden for a few hours (this summer I put them in the fridge)
- Remove from the mould and store them in a box or a glass jar (don’t hesitate to store it in the fridge on summer)
Besides being fun and easy to do, it’s a very nice gift idea. We made some for the teachers and birthday parties, people loved them!
3- Sink Mission: the infinite soap
What you need:
- Some soap:
If you keep your too-small-to-use soap pieces, this is the perfect moment to use them! Otherwise, you can use some soap chips (being in France I use organic Marseille soap made with vegetable oils)
- aromatic herbs (optional) (thyme, rosemary…) or flowers (lavender, dried violet …)
- moulds (bakery silicone moulds with funny shapes are the best!)
- Some string (optional)
What you do:
- If you use soap pieces, you have to grate them.
- Put all the soap in a pot and let it melt.
- If you want to perfume them put the minced herbs and the flowers
- Pour in the moulds and if you want to make a soap to hang, add the string to it.
- Let the soap cool off for a few hours, then put it in the fridge for an hour.
And that’s it! You now have some infinite soap since the pieces will be used to make some more in a few weeks!
4- Laundry room Mission: home-made detergent
I’ve tried several recipes and this is my favorite, especially since my baby’s skin is very sensitive to laundry detergent. You’ll be surprised how cheap it is to do and how long the ingredients will last! This is a very nice eco friendly recipe!
What you need:
-150g of soap flakes (I use Marseille soap which is only made with vegetable oils)
-100g of baking soda
- 150g of soda ash
- a container of 5 liters (I recycle my distilled water can)
What you do:
- Melt the soap in 2l of hot water. Let it cool to prevent the mixture from lathering too much.
- Then add the soda ash.
- Add 2 liters of cold water and add the baking soda.
- If you want to perfume your detergent, you can add some essential oils (I don’t do it, I prefer it neutral)
- Stir the mixture until you have a homogeneous mix
- You can add another liter to make the detergent less concentrated
You can use it immediately and the same way as you would do with any liquid detergent. Just shake it before use to mix all the ingredients.
5- Bedroom Mission: amazing boxes
Since we are always looking for boxes to put clothes, toys, paper… I prefer reusing some old shoe boxes and customize them to give them another life. This is easy and very nice to do with your kids (and a great alternative to jigsaws!)
What you need:
- cardboard boxes such as shoeboxes
- old magazines full of nice pictures (travel catalogs or old kids’ magazines)
- glue and coating (optional) or varnish-glue
What you do:
- Cut plenty of pretty pictures you want to use
- Glue them in a patchwork all around the box to cover it completely
- When the glue is dry, varnish it to be sure the pictures won’t come off (If you use varnish-glue you can skip this part)
You have now personalized, one-of-a-kind boxes to store all your stuff.
6- Deck mission: sponge
My son asked me for ages to learn how to sew with the sewing machine. This little workshop was the perfect occasion.
What you need:
- old terry towels
- threads (the same color of the towels or some bright colors to contrast)
- A sewing machine
What you do:
- Cut the terry towels in square or rectangles according to what you expect from your new sponges
- With the sewing machine, let your kids overcasting all around it, using some fancy stitching threads
And that’s it! You now have perfect sponges to wash the table, the sink, the chairs
7- Garden Mission: seeds to grow
This is a well-known activity that my kid loves! Planting seeds and letting them grow. It is very interesting to introduce some biology notions and to talk about the life cycle. In locked down, we tried to grow avocados and some basic grass as “head to cut”
For the avocado stone:
You just have to put the stone in a glass jar with some cotton wool. The wool will have to remain wet for the stone to germinate. When the sprout is big enough, you can transplant it in a soil pot. 4 months later, we are happy with the result.
For the “hair to cut”
It is quite funny. I reuse some glass yogurt jars and we paint them as a face (with a big smile). Fill the jar with soil, plant grass seeds. And in a few weeks you can cut the hair off your green head!
There are plenty of activities like these you can find on the internet with nice videos or tutorials. DIY is always fun with kids and a great opportunity to share some quality time with them. Doing some eco-friendly activity adds something more to this moment since it’s also the opportunity to change some habits as a family and to talk about what’s happening on Earth. What I loved more is how proud my son was to make these zero waste activities, especially when he could offer some balm, soap or bee wraps to friends, teachers or family!
Isabelle Nougier-Gallen is a French mum of two special boys on a journey to live in mindfulness and kindness with every living soul, while respecting our planet. She blogs about kindness here and she is an eco-friendly digital storyteller for positive impact small businesses. She also has an interest in self-development, self-care, books and the arts. Feel free to contact her and follow her adventures on Instagram @not_a_star_just_a_mum and @pimpyourbestlife