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