Green your kitchen

Reduce the consumption
Buying in bulk is cheaper and reduces unnecessary packaging. Reduce your waste even further by investing in cloth napkins, tea-towels and dish rags to replace all those paper products.

Green your plate
It takes a lot of fuel to deliver those out-of-season fruits and vegetables to your local grocery store. Buying local produce gives a boost to family farms but also provides you and your family fresher and more nutritious meals. Knowing exactly where your dinner comes from is comforting in this era of chemically contaminated foods.

Change your routine
Green your dishwasher by doing a full load every wash and opening the door after the rinse to let the dishes air dry. For less soiled dishes, use the quick rinse cycle. Be sure to use a phosphate-free detergent made with natural ingredients. The fish will thank you.
Keep your refrigerator coils clean and improve its energy efficiency. A full refrigerator uses less energy than an empty one, so stock up!
Stop pre-heating your oven—you’re just wasting 30 minutes of electricity. Matching pots and pans to the right sized heating element makes a big difference in energy savings, as well.

Pump up the recycling
On average only 30 percent of consumer packaging is being recycled. Start filling your bin with more paper (including empty toilet paper rolls), plastic tubs and bottles.

Easy green
Change some of your kitchen equipment and you can start saving energy (and money) while reducing your waste.

Composting to reduce garbage
Lessen your garbage headed to the landfill by composting. It’s ridiculously easy: setup your bin, throw in your kitchen scraps (no meat) and let the microbes for their thing. The end product is the best fertilizer possible for your garden. And, don’t let being a condo-dweller stop you. There are indoor kits for vermicomposting and electric indoor composters – more expensive than a regular bin but convenient and easy to use.

Polluted cleaning products
We clean out kitchen using harmful chemicals. All those anti-bacterial cleaners and sponges are laced with Triclosan, a chemical with no germ-killing advantage but linked to cancer. Other ingredients have been linked to other medical problems, including asthma and liver failure. If you do one thing – stop using oven cleaners and drain cleaners. There’s a reason they have a skull and cross bones on their labels. Send these toxic cleaners to your municipal drop off site and invest in natural cleaners that cost only a few pennies more. And, remember: vinegar and baking soda can get the job done most of the time.

Ditch the bottle water
Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. The irony is that you’ve already paid for this water through your taxes. Don’t be fooled by the advertising — bottled waster is no healthier than tap water. In fact, the opposite may be true since toxic chemicals often leach into the water from the plastic. Buy a home water filter and start drinking tap water.

Replace your cookware
Ditch the no-stick pans, not only because of the ongoing health debate over the perfluorochemicals used in their production but also because they have a limited life. Invest in some stainless steel pots and cast iron skillets that will last a lifetime. They may cost a bit more upfront but you’ll get your payback from them fairly quickly.

Deep green
The final step for greening your kitchen requires involves a bigger investment but one that pays for itself fairly quickly.

Change your appliances
If you’re dishwasher is older than 1994, consider replacing it and see your water and electricity bill shrink. Energy Star models use up to 1,2000 gallons of water less. If your refrigerator is older than 10 years, then it’s guzzling 60 percent more energy and should be replaced. New or not, side-by-side refrigerators use 20 percent more power. If you’re using an electric stove with spiral coils you’re also wasting energy. For energy savings, opt for natural gas or an electric stove with a ceramic glass surfaces and convection oven with fan.
Greening your kitchen is a gradual process that you tackle one step at a time. So, pick something you can handle at this moment in time and get started!