Cleaning And Greening Your Kitchen

Unplug your energy-saving appliances, scrub with eco-friendly cleaners and reuse your take-out containers and you might make your kitchen the most environmentally sustainable room in your house. From Low Impact Living's Jessica Jensen (who also blogs here at HuffPost Green), some green kitchen tips:

You may not know it, but your kitchen is one of the biggest resource hogs in your house. You use electricity and natural gas for your appliances. You use water in your sink and dish washer. Your fridge is stocked with foods grown and transported from all over the world that require chemicals, water and fuel to be produced and transported. And then there's the non-recyclable packaging that goes straight to a landfill.

Treehugger offers ways to green your kitchen by identifying the products that can be replaced with more eco-friendly alternatives.

The kitchen can be a minefield when you are trying to be eco-friendly. Start with paper towels and paper napkins--a definite no-no. But how can we give up aluminium foil--it saves hours of pot scrubbing? The answer: 100% recycled aluminium foil, which uses a fraction of the energy needed to smelt aluminium. And the clingy plastic film that is so essential for wrapping up leftovers and covering smelly food? Instead use food covers made of 100% food-grade silicone, which are reusable, pliable to fit all types of dishes and containers and good for the freezer. [...]For the garbage can: large bin bags made from potato starch or 100% recycled polythene, bio-degradable.

If that's not quite enough for you, catch up on 9 Eco-friendly Kitchen Ideas with Ecologue.

Related:
::Green your pantry
::Calculate your household environmental impact
::Read more on green living from the Huffington Post.

Comments

[JScott]

For the garbage can: large bin bags made from potato starch or 100% recycled polythene, bio-degradable. ..................

Hmmmm for one thing PUT BROOM CLOSETS BACK IN KITCHENS so there's someplace to put the kitchen garbage can, so many newer homes suddenly don't have them anymore.
Another -PUT BREADBOARDS BACK TOO, sliding out from the base cabinets, convenient and clever to increase work space.

[DavidMG]

I have been using the formulas in "Clean & Green" for years with great success.

[javaman]

My wife and I use vinager and water for floor clean ups. Works great. Plus we use a baking soda, salt combo for counter clean ups.