To make a picnic is to share good food, good company, and sunshine, all during one beautiful afternoon, or even just an hour! As the days warm, many of us will soon plan our own picnics—big picnics with coworkers, loud picnics with family, and intimate picnics with a special someone. Unfortunately, a picnic can easily turn trashy. When garbage cans overflow with plastic plates, parking lots fill with SUVs, and candy wrappers litter flower beds, we begin to forget why we have picnics at all. But let’s not let those negative outliers cancel our picnic plans—making an ecofriendly picnic is a piece of cake!
BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT: You’ll reduce trash, save resources such as petroleum and paper, and respect local plants and animals.
Cost: Low
Time and effort: Low. Have fun!
Tips for Making Your Picnic Green:
- Stay local. Don’t spend a nice day behind the wheel! Enjoy your corner park or even your own backyard. If you’re interested in exploring farther, ride a bike or take public transportation. I like learning about new parks by asking friends or locals, or by simply browsing Google maps.
- If you’re in a park or recreation area, eat only in designated picnic areas. Otherwise, you might attract animals, which might endanger both you and the animals. Take special care to avoid protected habitat, such as nesting bird sites. For more info on local outings, check out: Take an Eco-Day Trip!
- Eat local, organic, and seasonal foods. Bike to your farmers market the morning of the picnic, or peruse your supermarket’s produce section with a list of seasonal fruits and veggies in hand. If you’re short on utensils, pack finger foods like grapes and cheese cubes. Celebrating with a bottle of wine? Buy a biodynamic wine at your local health food store. (Biodynamic agriculture is a form of organic farming that wisely treats the farm’s soil, plants, and animals as a unified whole.)
- You don’t need a specialized picnic basket and checkered blanket to have a picnic! Search your closets for a shopping bag, backpack, or old Easter basket. If you need more supplies, peruse yard sales and thrift stores.
- Pack reusable utensils, napkins, containers, and table cloths. Those flimsy paper plates are not a prerequisite for a meal outdoors. I like to use speckled enamel plates because they’re hard to break and easy to clean. If you’re expecting more people than plates, ask your guests to bring reusable plates with them. If you still can’t imagine a picnic without disposables, buy recycled or compostable products.
- Don’t buy bottled water for the occasion. Bring a reusable jug of filtered tap water instead.
- Use natural repellent and sunscreen, not the cancer-causing stuff. Choose zinc oxide sunscreen, which provides UVA and UVB protection, and herbal repellents, which blend bug-fighting oils such as lemongrass and citronella.
- Clean up after yourself. If you use bottles and cans, recycle them. To easily sort trash, compost, and recyclables, make sure to bring three grocery bags for the clean-up.
- After your belly is full, have fun and get some exercise! Put down your iPhone and play a game of Frisbee or football, or if you are on a lake or river, enjoy the waters with a kayak or canoe!
- Explore your neck of the woods! Learn native plant and animal names with the aide of a trusty guide book, a nature journal, and binoculars. Instead of picking flowers, plant native seeds. When you’re all tuckered out, gain a different perspective on nature—lay back, look up, and watch the clouds float by.
