10 Easy Ways To Make Your Kitchen Eco-Friendly

Climate change, rising temperatures, global waste production, air quality, and ecological catastrophes. These are some of the hot topics of the current generations as the environment is in a very bad condition and if not taken care of at this stage, it might become difficult for it to sustain life. With climate change becoming a political hot potato for international discussions and debates, new initiatives and strategies have been made to support the cause of environmental sustainability.

As it is our collaborative work to reduce our impact on the environment, we all need to make our section of dedicated efforts. While the initiatives of installation of solar panels, reducing meat consumption, or recycling prove to be pretty good, you can also make small improvements without high efforts. Like most things, progress starts at home. The most effective space that serves as the heart of the home where you can make good gains is the kitchen. The eco-friendly kitchen begins with eating green, but it doesn’t end there. Let’s delve deeper into some of the ways that can contribute to the environment friendliness of your kitchen.

Ways To Make Your Kitchen Environmentally Sustainable

The kitchen is one of the most indispensable components of one’s home with its role in offering a source of livelihood to the people and giving a space where culinary delicacies are made. This is the space that gives you a plethora of opportunities to reduce your carbon footprint and overall impact on the environment. So before you go for some silly kind of consumerism and build your dreamy kitchen based on that, consider the different sustainable kitchen tips to maximize efficiency. Some of the few ways to make your contribution towards the betterment of your lifestyle and your planet are as follows:

1. Choose Energy-Efficient Kitchen Appliances

One of the smartest decisions in this context is to go for energy-efficient appliances for your kitchen. It is often better to go for modern refrigerators, ovens, and dishwashers with high energy star ratings as they help to reduce energy consumption and water wastage with effective performance for a long period.

You can also just make some of the small changes such as opting for LED lighting fixtures for your cabinets and other spaces. Additionally, you should carefully use appliances such as microwaves and roasters and unplug them when not in use to cut phantom energy consumption.

We wish to clarify that here we are not recommending throwing all your appliances in the garbage and buying new efficient ones. You need to understand even if you ensure the proper disposal of these things, it will result in the creation of large-scale waste and garbage. It is just better to not go for huge incredible kitchen appliances whose carbon impact is a lot, you can work with eco-friendly simple designs to make your contribution to the environment.

2. Invest In Cookware And Utensils That Work For Years

It is always an intelligent choice to prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to different elements of the kitchen as they can stand the test of time and reduce the need for regular replacements. You should go for durable items like stainless steel pots, cast iron pans, and wooden or bamboo utensils as they are more environmentally friendly as compared to plastic-based elements and also have a longer shelf life with incredible performance.

While the debate about the health hazards of non-stick surfaces continues, it is also a clear fact that it is not useful for a long period of time. It is often a smarter choice to opt for ceramic-coated or seasoned cast iron for a nonstick effect. Additionally, you should ensure that you regularly maintain and care for your tools to extend their lifespan and performance.

This will help you to reduce the total waste you produce in your kitchen and also save money in the long run. Even if the scope of consumerism is highly tempting, you should always think of the potential waste you are creating before you go out to buy a whole bunch of gadgets that you might only use once in your home.

3. Reduce Kitchen Water Consumption

In the pursuit of building an eco-friendly modular kitchen design, water consumption is an integral component as we all know the water safe for drinking and usage in the kitchen is very limited all over the world and a large section of the population does not even have access to it. First of all, check if there are any leaky faucets or pipes in the water supply and fix them. Then ensure that your dishwasher and washing machine operate efficiently and do not waste a lot of water.

There are numerous ways to build a zero-waste kitchen and water is central to it. It is often recommended to install a low-flow faucet, rinse vegetables in a bowl rather than running water, reuse the vegetable water for watering plants, scrape foods off plates rather than rinsing them before placing them in the dishwasher, and many others. Additionally, if you hand wash the dishes, you can fill a basin rather than letting the water run continuously while you wash. Every drop of water is precious and thus even the small efforts to reduce the kitchen water consumption mean a lot for the environment.

4. Go For Sustainable Kitchen Materials

There are a variety of sustainable materials such as bamboo, recycled glass, cork, and others popular in the kitchen renovation domain due to their superior efficiency, sustainability, and durability in the long run as compared to traditional options. These non-toxic kitchen products will last longer and reduce the need for regular expensive repairs thereby contributing to our cause of building an eco-friendly and zero-waste kitchen.

You can go for sustainable countertop materials that are more environmentally friendly, such as quartz. Engineered quartz is a man-made material derived from natural quartz minerals and resins, making it an eco-friendly option. Additionally, you can choose cloth napkins, towels, and food storage containers to reduce waste. You should prioritize the products that are recyclable or compostable, packed with minimal, recyclable, or reusable packaging, made from renewable resources, or ones with low embodied energy.

5. Use A Reliable And Sustainable Stove

Stove is typically the most used component of the kitchen especially in Indian cuisine due to its role in almost every dish we make at home. Therefore, it is usually a tough choice to find and select the most energy-conscious stoves for your home from the plethora of options available. It is the beauty of gas stoves that they are easy to heat and control temperatures but they negatively impact the air quality of the home and even outside in the long run.

So with the significant carbon impact of gas stoves, induction cooktops became a deification of an eco-friendly kitchen. These stoves use less than half the energy of standard stoves with their superior electromagnetic energy quality thereby contributing to the care for the environment. It is one of the drawbacks of the technology that they require certain metal cookware that comes with a high price tag, yet in terms of nature and the planet, it proves to be effective.

6. Choose Eco-Friendly Kitchen Accessories

The kitchen is made not just with some appliances, stoves, and other components. There are a large number of kitchen accessories that contribute to a well-organized, comfortable, and functional kitchen. One such element is the cabinetry which contributes to the storage of the different elements that make up the whole functioning of the kitchen. You can go for wooden cabinets and other materials that are FSC and PEFC sourced with low VOCs and hand-painted to enable you to change it up in a few years to keep your space looking fresh.

Additionally, you can also opt for other sustainable accessories such as cloth towels, reusable food containers, and compost bins that can offer efficiency for a long period of time and even reduce overall waste production with reduced costs. You can also go for energy-efficient lighting fixtures such as LED or CFL light bulbs that can reduce energy consumption, and energy bills and therefore contribute to environment preservation.

7. Clean Your Kitchen In A Green Way

There are a variety of products we use to clean our countertops and other kitchen surfaces that have a variety of harsh chemicals that impact not only our health but also the health of the environment. The different kinds of regular petrochemically-based dishwashing liquids, detergents, floor and surface cleaners, and other household cleaning products you use can destroy your green initiative’s impacts in a minute.

Therefore there are numerous companies working to create eco-friendly kitchen products in this domain as well. You should prefer using biodegradable dish soaps, natural all-purpose cleaners, and plant-based detergents, or even just DIY and create your own solutions using simple ingredients like vinegar, baking soda, and essential oils for hygienic surfaces along with environmental friendliness. These are great all-purpose, nontoxic cleaners that contribute to the creation of a safe and eco-friendly kitchen.

8. Reduce Food Wastage

One of the key features of an eco-friendly kitchen is that it reduces the total food waste, recycles, composts, and uses sustainable practices to reduce the amount of food waste produced. You should prevent cooking in bulk by buying the exact ingredients in the necessary amounts and case of leftovers, using them in creative ways to make the most of it. Additionally, you should plan what you wish to cook by taking inventory of what is available and planning the meals accordingly. This will reduce your bills by reducing extra consumption and also is an effective green initiative.

In addition, when shopping for groceries, it is better to choose items that are locally grown and produced for earth-friendly meals. Additionally, you can also turn the food scraps into valuable nutrients for your garden and its plants while significantly reducing landfill waste. You can set up a composting bin in your kitchen for vegetable peels, coffee grounds, and other organic materials and reduce your overall kitchen waste.

9. Reduce The Use Of Single-Use Plastic

Plastic is a highly harmful element to the environment as it cannot be decomposed even in thousands of years. Therefore one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce your waste production is reducing the use of single-use plastic. When you switch your preferences from plastic wrap to reusable alternatives such as silicon covers or beeswax wraps, or from plastic bags to washable, durable silicone ones or cloth options, it is adding to your contributions to environmental sustainability. You can also substitute paper towels with washable cloths or bamboo-based products, plastic containers with glass jars or metal containers, use reusable shopping bags handy and avoid purchasing products with excessive plastic packaging. This all contributes to the building of a better environment and world.

10. Go For A Sustainable Kitchen Remodel

You can’t make all the sustainable changes for your kitchen in a day. It is far more complex and comprehensive than this. However, when you plan to go for a kitchen remodel, it is often a smart decision to opt for a custom kitchen design where you can optimize the space and elements with an emphasis on sustainable materials and structures.

The expert kitchen remodelers can guide you to use reclaimed wood for cabinetry, countertops made with recyclable materials, finishes, and paint that are low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to improve indoor air quality. You can go for solar tubes to minimize the need for artificial lighting options. It is often a good choice to opt for layout choices that integrate recycling and composting systems seamlessly into the design making sustainable living easier and more convenient.

Hire Expert Kitchen Remodelers For A Green Kitchen Renovation

Green kitchen is no longer just a good approach that makes you a good citizen of this planet, it is the need of the hour considering the rising global temperatures, deteriorating air quality, and other impacts of the global environmental crisis. So to make your set of efforts in building a better world for yourself and your future generations, you should consider the numerous green kitchen ideas, energy-saving kitchen tips, and sustainable materials to build a functional, effective, beautiful, and incredible kitchen. Additionally, it is important to hire the services of modular kitchen manufacturers or kitchen remodelers, based on your needs and preferences, as they have expert knowledge in the domain and help you with the highest quality services possible.

Read Also: 25+ Trendy Open Kitchen Design Ideas For Your Renovation