Eco Friendly Household Goods

Published on November 19th, 2012 | by The Green Divas

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6 Easy Ways to Have a Greener Kitchen

Morning shows are fun, but they are kind of rough on a Monday morning! I have a new respect for all those morning show professionals who do it 5 days a week!

We had a great time with Ebru Today talking about getting greener in the kitchen. I kept my tips to things that were relatively easy, low or no-cost or in fact saved money. My philosophy on having a Green Diva kitchen is pretty simple and involves for basic ideas: a Green Diva Kitchen should . . .

  • produce yummy food
  • be healthy
  • be earth-friendly
  • low-stress!
Watch me having fun on Ebru TV and learn some simple tips for having a greener kitchen:


6 Easy Ways to Have a Green Diva Kitchen

1. Use Cloth Napkins

  • Paper products currently account for one-third of the municipal waste in the U.S. – great case for using cloth napkins and dishtowels
  • Paper products: paper v. cloth napkins – manufacturing cloth napkins takes a little more energy, however to wash and reuse them multiple times makes up for it and saves a LOT of trees
  • you can also easily make your own from remnants

2. Buy More in Bulk

  • Buying bulk for dry goods can save on packaging AND money! Example: Organic dried cranberries on average are 98% less expensive than their packaged counterpart
  • Between a quarter and a third of all domestic waste is packaging: much of it food packaging
  • To buy bulk goods, find a food coop or buying club near you at LocalHarvest.org

3. Recycle Even More

  • About 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet our recycling rate is only 28%
  • Recycle as much as you can
  • Try avoiding buying food and products with lots of packaging
  • Buy food and drinks in recyclable packaging such as glass jars or tin cans
  • Buy bulk

4. Use Only Eco-Friendly Sponges and Dish Towels

  • Most sponges are plastic and contain dyes, and synthetic disinfectants like triclosan, which has been determined to be a health hazard to humans and ecosystems by the EPA
  • Use a sponge made from natural and sustainable materials
    • Cellulose sponges – made from wood fibers – they biodegrade in landfills and go through a far less toxic manufacturing process
  • Landfills are filled with paper towels and there no way to recycle or reuse them
  • It takes about one year for the paper to biodegrade, the thicker the towel the longer
  • It’s cheaper to skip the paper towels

5. Remember to Use Reusable Shopping Bags

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1 million sea creatures a year
  • The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of Texas and it’s floating somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii. It weighs 3.5 million tons and is 80% plastic
  • If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the Earth’s equator 776 times!

6. Composting is Easy

  • Compost is excellent for garden soil
  • If you don’t have a garden, look for community compost program
  • Fruits and veggies, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells (rinsed and crushed), rice and pasta
  • Reduces your garbage output significantly
remember . . .
eat. blog. be merry!

fork image via shutterstock.com


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About the Author

The Green Divas share low-stress ways to live a deeper shade of green through a weekly radio show, podcasts, videos and blog posts. Working with talented partners and credible sources like myEARTH360 the Green Divas produce content on a variety of topics relating to a healthy green lifestyle. Visit The Green Divas website to learn more, and check out The Green Divas on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter too!



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