Going Green in the Kitchen

Going green in the kitchen means conserving energy and preventing waste. Using less energy and producing less landfill-clogging waste will save you money and might just save the planet. If you're looking to make your home more green, your kitchen is a good place to start. The room in which we prepare our food and sanitize household items is a place where we use a lot of energy and produce a lot of waste.

Getting Started
Making your kitchen more ecologically friendly probably sounds like a daunting task.  A tip to organize your time more efficiently is to start at one corner and work your way around the room in a clockwise direction. Look at each area of the kitchen to identify sources of excessive energy use or waste. Eliminate them one at a time, and, before you know it, you will have a greener kitchen.

Disposables
Cutting back on the amount of waste you produce is the first step to greener lifestyle.  Your kitchen is probably full of disposable items that will quickly pile up in a landfill. It's easy to replace disposable products with reusable ones.  By changing just a few old habits, you can drastically reduce the amount of waste that ends up in your trash bag.
 
Plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Do you buy rolls of plastic wrap? Consider switching to reusable plastic covers with elastic bindings. Not only are these covers stronger than plastic wrap, they will last for weeks.  Hand-wash them after every use and let them air dry. In the long run, these covers will reduce the amount of plastic you use in the kitchen. They save you money and help make your kitchen green.

Aluminum foil is handy to use around the kitchen, but it is not very green. Recycle it after you are done using it, and you will be doing your part to help reduce costly landfill waste. Always buy 100% recycled aluminum, which requires only a fraction of the energy used to make fresh aluminum. The best tactic is to cut down on your aluminum foil use entirely.

Plastic cutlery, paper plates and napkins. Disposable items like these are handy to use, but after you've used them, they end up in a landfill. That's not a very green idea. Stop buying these wasteful conveniences and stick with metal silverware, porcelain plates and cloth napkins. Not only will this reduce waste, it will make your family's dinner feel more homey and less like an indoor picnic.
Plastic containers. Glass storage containers are safer to microwave and wash. To green a kitchen, buy glass instead of plastic. Recycle old plastic containers instead of tossing them away.
Coffee filters. You can even green your coffeemaker by using a reusable coffee filter instead of the disposable paper ones.

Cleaning Products
Many cleaning products contain chemicals that are harmful to our environment. The petrochemicals in many common cleaning products are not biodegradable and can have a far-reaching environmental impact. Turning those petrochemicals into cleaning products burns a lot of carbon, which contributes to global warming. To green your kitchen, switch over to eco-friendly, store-bought products or go back to the basics and use natural, green cleaners like vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice and salt to clean your kitchen (as well as the rest of your house). Combining vinegar and baking soda creates a powerful cleaning solution; baking soda will combine with grease to make soap.

Appliances
The three biggest energy consumers in your kitchen are the stove, the refrigerator and the freezer. If these appliances are more than 10 years old, they probably waste a lot of energy. Replace them with Energy Star approved appliances, which are the most energy efficient on the market. Not only will you reduce carbon emissions, you will also save on your energy bill.  Those savings alone might make up the cost of the new appliances after a number of years' service.
The standard kitchen oven is an energy hog. Replace it with a convection oven that has a fan. Your new appliance will be 25 percent more energy efficient because it will cook foods quicker. If you're shopping for a refrigerator, the side-by-side models require much more energy than do refrigerators with freezers on top.

Lighting
The lighting in your kitchen is an easily overlooked source of energy waste. If you're still using those old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, then your kitchen is definitely not green. You're wasting energy and creating unnecessary heat that will raise your cooling costs. Use compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) instead. Switch your kitchen lights to CFLs and you'll enjoy a brighter (and greener) room with lower energy costs.

Tap Water
If you're like many Americans, you enjoy the taste and convenience of drinking bottled water.   However, all of those plastic bottles pile up-especially if you are not recycling.  In addition, the cost in energy of delivering bottled water from the water source to your supermarket is substantial. It is more cost effective in terms of both money and energy simply to use tap water. If you are concerned about the quality of your city's water supply, invest in a filtration system.

Recycle
Since your kitchen is one room in your house that normally produces much waste, green your kitchen by recycling everything you can. That includes paper, plastic jugs, other plastics, glass aluminum, tin and other metals. Get to know the recycling number system and find out what materials will be accepted by the curbside service in your city or town.