Guide to Home Sustainability: The Indoors, Pt 4

One of the places we have the most opportunity to become more sustainable is in our kitchen. Here, we make choices based on the types of foods we eat as well as how sustainably we cook and dispose of them.

The Kitchen

When looking at the kitchen, we’ll look at three main areas: food, disposal, and cleaning. With each of these, there are simple steps to make great changes – both food for your and the environment.

Food

Starting with the refrigerator, the first thing you want to do is start a transition to all organic food. Why, you ask? Making choices as consumers for sustainably grown foods is the first step in becoming overall more sustainable ourselves. Organic food doesn’t use soil-destroying pesticides, fertilizers, or growing practices.

Think it costs too much? Try to find a good farmers market or get a club card at your local super market. Truth is, the American Farm Bill helps keep chemically farmed food prices artificially low. That store brand cabbage is cheap because the government is paying the cost, not because it’s cheaper to grow.

Disposal

When it comes to food waste, the best thing to start doing is composting. With composting, you’re doing two things: decreasing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills and you’re helping rejuvenate the soil around your home.

Tied to that second benefit, when you compost, you’ll be providing yourself with the best soil for an organic garden or fruit tree. Mulch the compost into the ground and you’ll soon see a robust plant no amount of miracle grow can come close to!

Consider setting up a flow station for your kitchen – a designated area for sorting, peeling, chopping, etc, that will make it easy to get your food waste where you want it.

Cleaning

Like with the bathroom, the goal here is to get rid of harsh chemicals that can be rough on the skin and environment. Consider using your all purpose cleaner previously made for the bathroom also in the kitchen, or check out other products like Plant Inc’s line of home cleaners.