Serve a planet-friendly menu

Support the local community by buying local when you’re shopping for ingredients. Go to a farmers market to get fresh, local ingredients. If possible, ride a bike over to the market and back so you aren’t adding any carbon emissions to the atmosphere when you do your shopping. 

Likewise, serving a plant-based menu at your picnic is the single best way to reduce your carbon footprint. Here’s our pick of the 10 best vegan picnic recipes to get you started! 

Instead of throwing away leftover food, use them to make compost when you return home. From vegetable peelings to fruit waste and teabags, keep hold of these for your compost heap.

Avoid disposables

If you’re a keen picnic lover and want to make the most of the sunny season by heading outdoors a lot this season, why not invest in some beautiful, reusable picnicware? This is a great way to avoid buying things like paper plates and plastic cutlery, all of which need to be disposed of after one use. We’ve put together this guide of planet-friendly, reusable picnicware to help get you started. 

Walk, cycle or bus it to your chosen location

If your chosen picnic spot requires some travelling, making simple changes like ditching the car for the bike can make a huge difference to the health of our planet. Countryfile have put together this list of the UK’s best picnic spots to help get you inspired – you never know, you might be closer to one than you think!

Recycle where possible

Reusing beats recycling, but if that’s not an option, recycling is great for the environment, too. For example, you can recycle by using water leftover from the ice of the cooler to water nearby plants. Also, dispose of used cans and bottles in appropriate areas where they can be collected for recycling.

Do you have any tips to share? Let us know in the comments.