Having a picnic this Memorial Day?

Having a picnic this Memorial Day?

Here are some easy green tips and money saving coupons for your picnic:

Outdoor furniture
Clean with green and natural cleaning products instead of using toxic chemicals. Seventh Generation is a great product and has some good coupons available at http://www.seventhgeneration.com/coupons

Create Less Waste
Use biodegradable utensils, bowls and cups to create less waste for your local landfill. Have guests write their names on the items so that they can be reused. Marcal has a new product line of napkins and paper towels that are 100% recycled. Their website has a coupon at http://www.marcalsmallsteps.com/promotions or give guests reusable napkins so that they can be rewashed and used again.

Compost and use biodegradable trash bags
Use biodegradable plastic trash bags to clean up any surrounding trash. Ask your grocery store if they carry them or purchase them online at http://www.biobagusa.com/order_retail.html

Buy reusables
Compare a sponge to a roll of paper towels. One sponge may cost as little as $.99. A roll of paper towels runs around $1.99. But one sponge lasts as long as SEVENTEEN ROLLS of paper towels. You could save as much as $33 in paper towels before you have to throw the sponge away. Keep sponges fresh by washing in the dishwasher with the dishes or microwave on high heat for 30 seconds to kill germs. After doing a little research on sponges, there are tons of good, bad and ugly sponges out there - let us save you some reasearch and they are even on sale at Williams Sonoma.

You can have a fun, affordable and green Memorial Day weekend if you just commit yourself to earth-friendly practices.

Earth Day Contest Winners Announced

Thanks for all of the great posts to our blog last week. It's great to see the community working together to make Earth Day special!

We randomly selected the winners of the blog:
Kris Schultz
Greg Marshall
Jess at Alvernia
Elizabeth at Bullfrog Films
Judy at Tilden Twp.

Winners will receive a $10.00 Gift Certificate for the Berks Conservancy store.

WINNERS: Please email Kim Lewis at the Berks Conservancy at kim.lewis@berks-conservancy.org for complete details on how to redeem your certificate.

Thanks to all who participated!