Easy Swaps for a Sustainable Kitchen
They say the kitchen is the heart of a home and in this case, it’s also the perfect place to start practicing sustainability. Not only do food choices affect our health, but it’s also equally important to be aware of the environmental impact it makes. From food waste to our storage and cleaning products, we have an opportunity to make more thoughtful decisions to benefit our environment.
In this post, I’m sharing a comprehensive list of the products I personally use and recommend to waste less, save money and lower your impact. These are the perfect, easy swaps you can make when grocery shopping, cleaning, storing, or taking your food to-go.
Eco-Friendly Food Storage:
Not only will these help your food last longer (saving you money at the store), but they’ll also reduce the amount of plastic you use for storage.
Beeswax Food Storage Wrap instead of plastic cling wrap.
Avocado Hugger to save the other half of your avocado.
Glasslock Containers for quality leftover food storage.
Reusable Silicone Bags instead of plastic ziplock bags.
Mason Jars for shopping & storing goods from the bulk section.
Sustainable On-the-Run Goods:
Think about the number of grocery bags, coffee cups, straws, water bottles and more that you use every week. How does that multiply over the year? These are easy, long lasting purchases that will lower your impact significantly at the grocery store and on-the-go.
Mesh Produce Bags or no bags at all. Fruits and veggies can be placed gently in the cart without a bag.
Stainless Steel Straws instead of plastic straws + refuse straws at restaurants.
Travel Coffee Mug instead of disposable coffee cups and lids (I linked the one you've been seeing me carry).
Insulated Water Bottle instead of plastic water bottles. *Tip: If you forgot your bottle, buy glass bottled water over plastic. Glass can be recycled endlessly, but plastic can only be recycled a few times before it breaks down.
Reusable Shopping Bags (I like to use insulated ones since I live in hot, hot Texas!) instead of plastic or paper grocery bags. *Tip: Keep the bags in your car, so you remember to bring them into the store. After you unpack at home, leave the bags hanging on your front door and take it back out with you.
Non-Toxic Cleaning & Waste Products:
One aspect of the kitchen that often gets overlooked is our cleaning supplies - from the toxic soaps to the plastic bottles and paper towels. The below products are safer for you, while also helping you limit waste!
Concentrate Cleaning Kit with Reusable Glass Spray Bottles instead of buying a new plastic cleaning brand every time you run out.
Molly’s Suds Laundry Detergent Powder is free of harsh chemicals, toxins, fillers, carcinogens, preservatives or GMO ingredients. Their packaging is made of 100% recycled content from post industrial and post consumer waste.
Molly’s Suds Laundry Whitener Powder works very well to brighten up white sheets!
Cellulose Sponge Cloths to reduce usage of paper towels. You can throw these in the dishwasher to easily clean!
Biodegradable Trash Bags for all compostable food waste, paper, and other compostable packaging.
Don’t feel overwhelmed to tackle all of this at once! Choose one area to focus on, commit to it, and slowly add on as you see fit. And if you need a little more help to source the products that are right for you, check out The Grove Collaborative! They’re a really cool delivery service that’s on a mission to help people lower their impact and live a healthy lifestyle in the easiest way. They source sustainable, safe and natural home, beauty and personal care products that you can choose from and have delivered to your door. I’ve been using them recently and love it! I really trust all the products they provide and the convenience is amazing. Let me know if you try them out!
