OUR STORY

Planet’s Friend Party Hire Ltd is a venture created by sisters Helen Campbell and Vikki Molloy. We live a few miles apart in Hertfordshire. With two children each, and the four of them now with a collective age of nearly 100 years (!), we have held plenty of children’s parties over the years.

We’ve done our fair share of pink, blue and everything in between, dinosaurs, fairies, diggers, superheroes, princesses, army and disco glitter extravaganzas. And we’ve fallen victim plenty of times to the frantic pressures to give the birthday child the themed party they want, with all the gear, the gimmicks and the plastic frippery … and the awful inevitable waste. Guilty as charged.

Two children and a party each year until the age of 12 (after that age, we found parties took an altogether different direction!), with 30 children at each. That’s 720 disposable plates and 720 disposable cups before your children are teenagers.

The idea of Planet’s Friend Party Hire, to reduce waste from children’s parties by hiring out quality reusable tableware and creating themed options, was conceived a couple of months before any of us had even heard of the word ‘Covid’, and when there were plenty of parties going on.

The impact of the pandemic, lockdowns and social distancing put the physical launch of the company on hold, but gave us plenty of time to think, plan, analyse and design.

We hope that you not only like the result, but that you will see that what we’re trying to do is revolutionise the way we as a society celebrate – try us and never buy a paper plate or cup from the supermarket or the internet ever again. Dispense with the Disposable.

But paper plates and cups are made of paper and can be recycled. Can’t they?

Paper plates and cups create huge amounts of waste. Partyware with a plastic coating to protect from moisture can’t be recycled or composted so has to go straight to landfill, while anything that could be recycled but which has grease or other food residue on cannot easily be recycled either.

In any case, recycling eats resources such as water and energy.

The first R of waste reduction isn’t Recycle. It’s Rethink

How can we do things differently?

The second R is Reduce.

But your children still want parties and, like all parents, you want to give them magical memories with their friends and family.

The third R is Reuse.

And that’s exactly where Planet’s Friend comes in.

We offer a beautiful and sustainable way to create that party magic without the environmental pain. Create far less waste and pollution than soggy stained paper plates and plastic-coated disposable cups by hiring our beautiful colourful plates and cups, mixing and matching to create your party memories without creating party waste.