Green Living Guide: Picnics with Potential

Everyone is going green and an eco-friendly picnic offers a super opportunity to enjoy the outdoors ecologically with friends and family. Grab your picnic goods and pick a perfect picnic location. Try to select a spot within walking or biking distance so you will not have to use gas or other energy to get to your great green picnic. Invite your picnic guests with phone calls, in person or online rather than printing and mailing invitations.

Here's a green living guide to having an eco-friendly picnic.

Eco-Friendly Picnic Provisions

Go green with an eco-friendly picnic by serving plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Hunt for organic meats and produce, and include these.

Why not whip up a bountiful tossed salad to share, or create delicious and nutritious submarine sandwiches on nifty nutty organic breads? Finish with a yummy fruit salad, picking locally grown organic produce in season to conserve energy and costs.

Eco-Friendly Picnic Packing

Bring back the old-fashioned picnic basket for your eco-friendly picnic. Dash disposables, and pack your picnic provisions in reusable plastic containers. If you need not tote your picnic far, you might use ceramic or glass casserole dishes with lids instead.

Arrange sandwiches together in a single large container, as this will reduce packaging and minimize dishwashing later. You can save water, energy and time by doing so.

Pour your eco-friendly picnic beverages into tightly sealed thermal flasks, cooler dispensers or covered pitchers.

For an eco-friendly picnic, your goal is to use nothing that must be tossed out.

Eco-Friendly Picnic Pieces

Please your picnickers by setting out a pretty picnic blanket or tablecloth. Look for natural fibers, if you can. You can find super used blankets and tablecloths at rummage sales and resale shops. Arrange your eco-friendly picnic spread on a sturdy picnic table or right on the ground.

Be sure to use real dishes, cups and silverware, which you will wash at home, rather than disposable goods. Forgo paper, and pack clean cloth napkins or cotton bandannas for your picnic.

Eco-Friendly Picnic Pickup

Of course, the key to eco-friendliness, when it comes to picnics, is cleaning up thoroughly afterwards. Great green living means leaving the environment at least as clean as we have found it.

Why not enlist your entire picnic party to pick up any trash that may be found in the area? You might even create a contest to see who can collect the most paper, plastic or other recyclables.

Wrap up your great green eco-friendly picnic with a brick walk or bike ride home.