Picnic checklist: sustainable & plastic free
It's summer - it's picnic time. With delicious things it goes off into the park. But what about all the garbage that a picnic makes? Paper cups, disposable dishes and packaging? Forget about it! With our cool checklist you can easily organize a sustainable picnic for friends and family.
What shouldn't you forget to bring for a sustainable picnic?!
Content:
· Food and drink: Best homemade, seasonal and regional!
· Finally: Where to put the garbage?
Sustainable picnic basket
A Picnic is romantic, isn't it? It becomes even more romantic with vintage picnic baskets. Oh, what stories these old and used baskets could tell: laughing children, marriage proposals or as always quarrels with uncle Werner. Vintage picnic baskets with a story can be found at flea markets, classified ad portals or thrift stores or second hand in online stores. Of course, if you're a DIY crack, you can weave your own baskets from recycled materials.
Picnic blanket
Nature lover and tough outdoor type? Good for you, but you still don't have to sit in the wet. That's just uncomfortable. The insulating, waterproof layer of a good picnic blanket is therefore essential to make the picnic a complete success and beautiful experience.
Reusable food containers
Eating out of plastic containers is so eighties, but unfortunately not in a positive sense! Reduce instead of produce is the order of the day when it comes to plastic waste. By getting yourself a good selection of reusable take-away food containers, you can quickly avoid plastic waste. Nowadays, there's a great selection of different models, such as our bread boxes and lunchboxes or stainless-steel food storage containers.
Completely without plastic and harmful substances. A few boxes also offer subdivisions, so that you can transport up to 3 components or dishes at the same time. You can also wrap your favorite cheese in oilcloth. Or fill your couscous salad into screw-top jars.
Crockery, Cutlery & Straws
Dishes and cutlery are probably already in your picnic basket, if not just take what you have at home. But be careful with grandma's good china. Another wonderful zero waste solution is reusable stainless-steel straws.
What else you may need:
- Sharp knife
- Cutting board
- Kitchen towel
- Cloth napkins
- Corkscrew,
- Bottle opener, can opener if necessary
- Compostable garbage bags
- Sunscreen, parasol
- Mosquito repellent
- Good mood
Download here the picnic checklist as PDF.
Sustainable picnic: ideas & tips
Pack your baskets, we're going for a picnic! The warm season is perfect to enjoy a nice picnic in nature. The sun is shining, everything is wonderfully green, you just have to go out. What's better than eating with friends outside? What more could you want! But since we are only guests in nature, we should take care to leave as few traces as possible. On the one hand, this means taking your trash back with you after the picnic, but on the other hand, we should also make sure that we have produced as little trash as possible in the end. This starts with the shopping for the picnic and continues with the packaging and serving of the food.
To make the picnic fun for you and nature, we would like to show you what a sustainable picnic can look like. How you can avoid plastic waste, for example, or what you should consider when choosing a picnic site.
Find the right picnic spot
Even in the city, there are plenty of places where you can have a great feast. City parks and green spaces are good locations when it comes to a picnic area. Many lakes are also a great place to unroll your picnic blanket.
But keep your hands off places where it is forbidden to enter the green spaces by a sign. The fun could be over very quickly and you could end up being reported to the police. Picnicking is also prohibited in nature reserves and parks or gardens that are protected as historical monuments. For example, around castles and monasteries. But there are plenty of other places where you can spread out your blanket!
Food and drink: Homemade, seasonal and regional!
To avoid waste, it's best to avoid packaged convenience foods and make your own food for the picnic. Homemade tastes better anyway! When shopping for ingredients, you can save on packaging waste by buying loose vegetables and food and bringing your own bags, nets or containers for the groceries. Loose seasonal and regional vegetables can be found at markets, health food stores, or the unpackaged store, for example. So can the other ingredients.
Every preference is different and that's why there are almost no limits to your imagination when it comes to food and drink creations. You can take delicious mint or ginger-lemon flavored water or make your own iced tea. And when it comes to food, there are numerous recipes for finger food, salads, spreads or sandwiches to be found on the Internet or very oldschool in books in your city library.
Finally: Where to put the garbage?
Actually, it should go without saying that you leave the space as you found it and yet public green spaces have more and more litter, to the suffering of the environment and fellow human beings. If there is any trash at the picnic, you should dispose of it in a waste garbage can or, even better, separate it by type of trash in a suitable place. The next recycling island is certainly not far away.
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