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!
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
fork image via shutterstock.com
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About the Author
The Green Divas 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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