Mother's going GREEN Day 15 - Picnics the Green Way

Summer is almost upon us in our neck of the woods, although you wouldn't believe it with our cool temperatures.

But with summer here many people will head outdoors for picnicking and there is an eco-friendly approach to these wonderful outdoor meal occasions.

• Make your food fresh and organic and local if possible.


• Use minimal packaging to transport your food. Perhaps glass containers for homemade salads, fresh veggies and dip, a nice sandwich and some yummy homemade cookies for dessert.


• Ditch the paper plates, plastic cups, cutlery and paper napkins and dine outdoors in style with stainless steel cutlery, glass glasses, cloth napkins and china plates (the plates you use on a regular basis). This way you will not creating additional waste which eventually lands up in the landfill.

Our family has a "picnic basket" - a gift I received from my husband for my very first mother's day and in it we keep all of our utensils, china plates and glassware along with our traditional red gingham cloth tablecloth and matching cloth napkins. It is perfect.

Going picnicking as a group or joining a group on a picnic can also be environmentally friendly if everyone just brings there own plate, cutlery, glassware and cloth napkin.

Going on a picnic is all about enjoying the outdoors, experiencing mother nature so in turn it would be nice if we left none of ourselves behind. Happy summer and happy picnicking.

Mother's going GREEN Day 1 - Our Family's Ecological Footprint

Going Green for the modern mother is an additional challenge added to her already hectic day, but after being inspired by others going green and reading a terrific book "The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating" by ALISA SMITH and J.B. MACKINNON, I could no longer turn a blind eye to the environmental crisis that our world is in.

Today, I sat down and calculated our family's ecological footprint and we came to a whooping 6.48 earths. That is, if everyone on the planet lived our lifestyle we would need 6.48 earths to sustain it. I am sorry but that is just pathetic. The average worlds ecological footprint is 1.5 earths, clearly our family is way beyond that and drastic steps need to be taken in order to reduce this footprint.

Now our family already recycles as much as we can, we also have done away with the plastic shopping bags, although one or two may find their way back into our household, yet it is not enough; there is so much more that we NEED to be doing....

And so our journey begins: Reducing our footprint!!!

To learn more about Ecological Footprints and to calculate your own Footprint you can visit

http://www.rprogress.org/index.htm - They offer great tips on reducing your footprint and some frequently asked questions. Also for a small donation you can have a poster of your Ecological Footprint done up. This is what I did and have posted it on our refrigerator as a reminder of our challenge.

For a children orientated quiz to determine their footprints you can visit http://www.kidsfootprint.org/ - this proved to be a fun and interactive activity for my 5 year old son.

For more information on "100 Mile Diet" book you can visit: http://100milediet.org/book/