7 easy ways to make your kitchen more eco friendly

The kitchen is one of the most utilitarian rooms in the entire house. With an array of items such as cleaning products, food, and utensils, it offers the entire collection for you to prepare your three meals for the day. However, it’s no surprise that the kitchen is also one of the least eco friendly rooms in the house. Filled with plastic bottles, non-recyclable containers, and tons of paper; most of the domestic trash ending up in landfills comes from this very place. 

Not to worry though, here are a few easy tips on how to make your kitchen more eco friendly.

Start using reusable shopping bags

Reusable shopping bags have created a huge fan following over recent times. Not only are they more environmentally friendly, but can also be made using the scraps you have at home. Reusable bags also help reduce costs by removing the extra amount you have to pay every time for a carry-on bag whenever you’re off to buy the groceries.

It may not seem much, but when you add up the number of times you find yourself shopping at the supermarket, you’ll find that you can save quite a few dollars every month (which is pretty cool for people who are looking to save some cash!).

Ban plastic bags

With the amount of environmentally friendly alternatives available for your average plastic bag, there is literally no excuse for you to keep using one in your kitchen. One of the best ways to make your kitchen eco friendly is to ban plastic bags completely and start using alternatives made from more environmentally friendly ingredients like bamboo, bioplastic, or even biodegradable plastic. 

Trash bags are one of the most common types of plastic bags found in the kitchen and are the primary pollutant in landfills all across the globe. Thankfully, the introduction of biodegradable garbage bags has allowed people to replace their ordinary plastic trash bags with a more environmentally friendly substitute without breaking the bank.

Check your plumbing

Taps in the kitchen are often used for longer periods than the ones found in the rest of your home, therefore are more susceptible to breaking and leakages. Over time, the pipes beneath the sink as well as the taps themselves start to leak and waste water (which can usually be fixed by your plumber). However, let the leakage go unnoticed for too long and you might have part replacement on the cards, which isn’t exactly cheap! 

Leakages in the kitchen, especially beneath the sink, often go unnoticed and waste away several gallons of water every day. Therefore, it’s always best to have your plumbing checked every few months to prevent water from being wasted and you having to deal with expensive plumbing and water bills.

Use high-quality utensils

One neat way to make your kitchen more eco friendly and save money at the same time is to always buy high-quality utensils and cookware. Cooking food requires utensils that can withstand high heat and wear and tear for a long period of time, every single day of the year. If you buy cheap cookware from the supermarket, chances are it won’t last you very long and would need to be replaced in a few weeks.

Replacing means the old ones get thrown away, and since most of the utensils or cookware are either made from metal or plastic, they’ll probably remain in landfills for several years. Not only is that a wastage of precious resources, but it contributes towards polluting the environment. 

Instead, consider investing in relatively higher quality cookware. Better utensils and cookware would last you several months or even years, meaning you won’t have to replace them every other month. Replacing less often would help reduce the trash in landfills, as well as save you a lot of cash!

Compost your organic waste

Preparing meals in the kitchen often leaves several fruit and vegetable scraps, consisting of mostly peels that are no longer of any use. These scraps often aren’t fully utilized and are thrown away in the bin, where they rot away. Instead of throwing away your fruit and vegetable peels, why not feed them to your garden?

Composting is a great, environmentally friendly way of creating your very own nutrient-rich fertilizer right in your backyard. All you require are a few essentials such as organic waste (your fruits and vegetables) and lots of sunshine. To get started on how you can do this and to explore what you can (and can’t) compost, be sure to read my article on how to make compost at home.

Recycle

A definite no-brainer; always recycle your used-up containers, utensils, and cookware whenever you can. The kitchen is home to hundreds of plastic items such as containers, bottles, and utensils. Recycling these items can greatly reduce the amount of plastic that gets dumped away in the landfills and oceans.

Before buying any pre-packaged product, always look for the recycling symbol found on the container to make sure if the product you’re buying is recyclable. As for the items that are single-use, try to replace them with eco friendly alternatives if available.

Eat less meat

There are two major reasons why eating a lesser amount of meat can help make your kitchen more eco friendly. Firstly, cooking meat takes a longer amount of time. You can either cook meat over a flame (which uses fossil fuels) or use an induction stove (which is more efficient but uses a lot of electricity).

Either way, cooking for prolonged periods means excess usage of resources, and if you have meat as part of your daily diet, chances are you’re already consuming a major chunk of limited resources that can be utilized elsewhere. 

Secondly, increased consumption of meat means that there is a greater demand for livestock, which must be matched with supply. Cow manure is one of the major producers of methane, a greenhouse gas responsible for absorbing heat in the atmosphere and causing global warming. With the increased number of livestock, the amount of methane gas has also reached an all-time high in almost 800,000 years, which is worrying, to say the least.

Reducing the amount of meat in your diet would help lower the number of non-renewable resources used for cooking food, as well as help regulate the demand for livestock, and consequently, the amount of methane in the atmosphere.

An eco-friendly lifestyle at home is incomplete without making your kitchen environmentally friendly. These easy tips to make your kitchen eco-friendlier will definitely help you get started on your journey to a lower carbon footprint without burning a hole through your wallet.