5 Ways to Make Your Kitchen Eco-Friendly
Are you concerned about the impact your lifestyle choices at home has on the environment? The truth is there are so many little habits at home that we can tweak to be more environmentally friendly, more energy efficient and less wasteful. These habits aren’t just to benefit the environment – you, your family and even your finances will be much happier after making some of these changes!
So where do we start? Well, a great place to start is in your kitchen. We spend a lot of time in our kitchens, which is arguably one of the most important rooms in any home where we come together to eat, relax and socialize before and after work. It should come as no surprise that some of our choices can have an environmental impact and can even have a negative effect on our health!
More and more people are becoming aware of this and are making conscious decisions to create a more eco-friendly kitchen. There are plenty of little changes that you can implement that will add up and contribute to a more sustainable kitchen. From ditching aluminium pods to setting up a recycling system, give these 5 ideas a go and say hello to a more eco-friendly kitchen:
Start a compost for kitchen scraps
It is so easy to overbuy at the grocery store and cook enough to feed a village. But instead of chucking leftovers and scraps straight into the bin, set up a compost bin in your kitchen and start making a conscious effort to see whether your scraps can be composted. Usually any vegetable scraps, grains, products made out of flour, eggshells, coffee and tea can be chucked straight into home compost. You can easily reduce the amount of waste your kitchen generates by doing this.
Switch aluminium coffee pods for biodegradable
Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide and the coffee pod machine has become a staple in many households, giving people the convenience of great coffee without having to leave their house. But did you know that aluminium pods take around 500 years to break down in landfill? You can opt out your traditional aluminium Nespresso compatible coffee pods for some biodegradable coffee pods, which are much more environmentally friendly. A great alternative is Urban Brew coffee pods, which are both recyclable and biodegradable, only taking around 2 years to breakdown in landfill compared to 500 years!
Set up a recycling system
If you don’t already have one, you should set up a recycling system to organise your recyclable waste. Every city has different rules when it comes to what can and can’t be recycled, so you will need to check with your council to confirm their guidelines. You should set up a two part recycling system – one for disposal (e.g. soda bottles) and one for reuse (e.g. glass jars). You may need more than two bins depending on how many recycling categories you’re going to have. If you don’t have enough room in your kitchen for this system, you may want to store them in the garage or laundry. To make sure everyone in your household is on the same page, print out what items can be placed into each bin and stick them on the bin or somewhere nearby.
Ditch all single use plastic
There are so many single use plastic items that we use in our kitchen every day. This includes cling wrap, takeaway containers and produce bags just to name a few. Not only do these single use items negatively contribute to landfill, but they also don’t keep food as fresh as other more eco-friendly products would! An alternative for traditional cling wrap is investing in some reusable beeswax paper. Traditional plastic produce bags should be swapped out for reusable mesh bags, which will keep your produce much fresher as well. You should also ditch any single use takeaway containers and invest in some good Tupperware that will last you a lifetime. Some of these eco-friendly alternatives may be a bigger investment upfront, but will end up paying off in the long run and don’t contain toxins like some plastic products do!
Use LEDs
Kitchens tend to be one of the most lit up rooms in any home, so ditch your globes and grab some LEDs instead. The lifespan of LEDs is a significant advantage over traditional lighting, with most lasting 2-4 times as long. Not only this, but they also consume very low amounts of power and could be saving around 90% of energy than traditional lighting. Some more environmental advantages include LEDs having no toxic elements and less lights needed due to the better quality of light distribution compared to other types of lighting.
An eco-friendly kitchen is an easy goal to work towards and only needs a conscious effort to change a few of your current habits for the better of not just the environment, but also for you, your family and your finances. Incorporate the above ideas into your kitchen and make your kitchen a more sustainable place!
