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At times of celebration and during parties, be sustainable. Avoid cutting down trees and make your own eco-friendly confetti!

Image: Kirsty - instagram.com/rituallywiccan

Confetti is a very present element in Brazilian parties and, when Carnival arrives, it is almost absolute. If you can make it through the parties without a shower of glitter, chances are you won't escape the confetti! Okay, it's a party, but have you ever wondered if the confetti you're going to throw on the streets could be harmful to the environment?

Here in Brazil, confetti is usually made with paper. Not so bad if your production came from recycled materials. However, there are “innovative” brands that use cellophane, a non-recyclable type of plastic – which will eventually fall to the ground, overtake sewage treatment plants and become microplastic in the ocean. He can?

Don't fall for it! You don't need to waste paper or throw microplastics like glitter on the street to enjoy parties with a lot of sparkle. Just as you can make your own eco-friendly glitter, you can also make sustainable confetti. See what it's like to produce recycled paper confetti or eco-friendly confetti to enjoy Carnival with no weight on your conscience.

• Eco-friendly glitter: homemade recipes to shine naturally

Do it yourself

If you really want to participate in the confetti rain, one option is to make your own, homemade and recycled. Use old papers like old magazines and newspapers, bills paid a long time ago, stationery, used school notebooks that you still keep... Any kind of paper accumulated in a cupboard will do. (You'll even take the opportunity to clean your house and free up space!) The more colorful papers you find, the better!

Once your selection is made, just use a paper punch to make your recycled confetti. That simple! With this, you avoid the expense of paper exclusively for this purpose and also save money.

If the celebration is at home, after the party just collect the sustainable confetti and throw it in the correct place, that is, the blue garbage can from the selective collection. To learn more about recycling, read the article: "Colours of selective collection: recycling and its meanings".

ecological confetti

An even better alternative is to make an eco-friendly confetti using dried leaves and flowers. The same paper punch can be used to turn leaves and flowers that have fallen from trees into sustainable confetti. Never pull the leaves off the trees just for that!

Look for fallen leaves from different trees so you'll have different shades of your confetti. Some trees, such as Flamboiã, have leaves that are already naturally small - this species is particularly good for the function because its leaves fall out very often, so it will be very easy to get ready-to-use ecological confetti (and you still make one. please when cleaning someone's sidewalk!). In addition to being small, the leaves of Flamboiã also have a characteristic shine, which makes them, when they fall, produce a sensation of silver rain (in a greenish version!).

You can also make your own confetti spear! It is possible to reuse used toilet paper rolls and withered bladders to make a homemade silver rain confetti spear. There are several videos on the internet with tutorials. It is also possible to create a more elaborate, almost professional confetti spear (use the tips on how to make sustainable confetti to place them inside your confetti spear !). Check out the video.

So, convinced that it's easy to enjoy a sustainable Carnival?