Hello to lovers of the great outdoors and good times spent with friends or family! You enjoy nature and its green spaces. But in these times of pandemic, curfew, and forced lockdown, outdoor leisure — or rather leisure at all — has become rare.
However, if you look on the bright side, you can make the most of all this forced time at home and tackle all those little tasks you usually leave for rainy Sundays.
Once all of those tasks are done, you may find yourself asking certain existential questions such as: How can I set up my kitchen in a zero-waste way? Are organic textiles really eco-friendly? Or even, are bamboo toothbrushes made in France?
Let me tell you that if you ask yourself questions like these, you have a strong eco-friendly streak! So I invite you to check out our blog: Eco mag in which we take great pleasure in exploring this topic through our articles and praising the benefits and uses of our flagship plant — of course, I’m talking about bamboo.
To get back to the topic of this article, once lockdown is over, you’ll very quickly be tempted to finally enjoy a sunny weekend for your “post-lockdown picnic.”
Below, I’ll explain how to prepare a zero-waste picnic: 😉
How do you prepare an eco-friendly picnic?
Whether it’s a picnic with friends or family, we often find the same foods, accessories, and utensils that make a picnic a picnic: the cooler or wicker basket, the checked tablecloth, the plastic cutlery or the ones from home, bags of chips, and ready-made salads.
However, to prepare an eco-friendly picnic, you’ll need to rethink some of the items mentioned above in an eco-responsible version.
Bonus: discover some practical picnic recipes in the video below.👌
Zero-waste chips recipe 🍀
Chips! These little petals of vegetables fried or baked until golden have their place in many social moments in our daily lives. The same goes for a picnic.
However, chip packaging is made of very thin plastic and aluminum, which poses a recycling issue. So, I encourage you to make your own chips. Here is a very suitable anti-waste chip recipee for camping and days picnics.
Ingredients:
- vegetable peels (carrot, potato …)
- olive oil
- seasonings (salt, pepper, herbes de Provence, curry …)
Equipment:
- a peeler
- an oven
- baking paper.
Step:
- Preheat your oven to 180°
- To make thin, crispy chips, I recommend using a peeler to slice them. In a zero-waste recipe, keep in mind that the peels are used. Choosesyour vegetables with an organic production label.
- In a mixing bowl, place your peels (including the skins), add a drizzle of olive oil, and season.
- Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake for 15 minutes
- Once they come out of the oven, let them cool for a few minutes …. they’re ready to enjoy!
They won’t keep as long as store-bought chips (5 days maximum). However, the advantage is that they are preservative-free and zero waste. I recommend making them the same morning so they stay nice and crisp.
Shopping without packaging 🧐
The first step is to do the shopping for your eco-friendly picnic. To do so, you’ll need to avoid all plastic packaging and favor local markets found in every city. Think about getting fabric food bags to avoid plastic ones.
You also have the option of doing your bulk shopping in certain organic stores such as bio cop. There is also vrac mobile which is a truck converted into a grocery store offering to sell all their food and non-food items without packaging.
All you have to do is go to their point of sale with your own containers so you can fill them and avoid packaging. You’ll have everything you need to make your snacks and zero-waste sandwiches.
The useful accessories for picnicking in an eco-friendly way ♻
Once the shopping is done, the second step is to equip yourself with everything you need in terms of zero-waste accessories and utensils.
This is often where most people get fooled! Indeed, you may have noticed the appearance in supermarkets of containers, plates, forks, knives, spoons, and cups made from natural fiber. Bamboo fiber is often highlighted because this plant is considered the most eco-friendly plant in the world. Its reputation is well established. One tip: if you want to know more about bamboo, I invite you to read this article on our blog: the benefits of bamboo.
You should know that bamboo fiber is not eco-friendly at all.
Utensils made with this fiber often contain melamine which, when heated to high temperatures in microwaves, can release carcinogenic substances.
These items have been recalled by supermarkets. I encourage you to be extra careful and read product labels closely. If you see viscose or melamine, you can be sure that the product in question is not as eco-friendly as they would like you to believe.
A small note: the same goes for textiles. I invite you to read our article on this topic: Bamboo fiber and eco-friendly textiles.
At Bamboo Home Store, we guarantee that our products are made with respect for nature and without the addition of chemical substances.
Below, you’ll find 3 accessories to include in your eco picnic kit:
The eco picnic set
Whether at the office, while traveling, or during a picnic, th his bamboo cutlery set is the ideal zero-waste kit that meets all expectations in terms of eco-friendly cutlery.
Our set TAKE KATORARĪSETTO™ contains knife, fork, spoon, chopsticks, and a bamboo straw with its cleaning brush to make cleaning easier. The best choice for seasoned campersnes.
Bamboo fruit basket
Practical and removable thanks to its foldable base, you can easily carry it during your picnics and family road trips.
Our bamboo picnic fruit baskets live up to their name and will fit perfectly in the center of your checked tablecloth.
Bamboo water bottle
You can’t imagine a picnic without planning how to stay hydrated. Obviously, to go with an eco-friendly picnic, the traditional plastic water bottle has no place here.
We recommend using a bamboo water bottle as your container.
However, another question arises: where does the water come from? We agree that if you empty a plastic bottle to fill your water bottle, that isn’t any more eco-friendly in the end.
I encourage you to equip your faucets with a water purifier. These accessories fit all types of taps to filter the water flowing through them.
You’ll then be able to use water from your taps to fill your water bottles and have water that is safe to drink.
