The kitchen, the heart of the home, but one place that can be an environmental nightmare if you aren’t careful. If you look around yours today, how many items can you spot that are single use plastic? How many utensils, food bags and plastic packed fruit and veg are lurking in your cupboards and fridges? But don’t panic, there are many small ways to make it better for the planet, we’ll look at just a couple of the many areas that you can make changes. AD for SaveMoneyCutCarbon
Food Storage
- Glass jars are a perfect eco-friendly option for storing things like cereal, dried store cupboard items like flour, rice, beans, lentils and pasta, herbs and spices. It needn’t be an expensive option either many places now have a huge variety of sizes and shapes at affordable prices. You can then take advantage of the abundance of loose produce refill shops that have popped up in recent years, some supermarkets even have loose produce aisles.
- Beeswax wraps are an excellent alternative for cling film for many items, sandwiches for packed lunches, covering bowls in fridges, just don’t try and microwave them or wash them in hot water!
- Another great eco-friendly product for food storage is the Stasher Bag range, available at SaveMoneyCutCarbon, an ingenious reusable product that comes in a variety of sizes for all sorts of food storage. The platinum silicone bags are completely non-toxic, made from medical grade silicone and can be reused endlessly. They seal shut completely and food can be stored in them in the cupboards, fridge or freezer and then you can reheat the contents in several ways as the bags can go in the microwave, be boiled in a pan of water and even the oven. Best of all, you can just chuck them on the top shelf of your dishwasher to clean. I really wish these had been around when I was weaning my kids!
- For microwaving plates or bowls of food, you can buy silicone covers that are reusable and fit to all different sizes of crockery.
Plastic Packaging
- As well as using loose refill shops, another way to cut down on your plastic packaging is to get a fruit and veg box. Many of these are direct from the farmer as well, which gives them a better rate and helps to support local businesses. It is also a nice way to ensure that you eat that is in season with no or fewer air miles.
- If you like to choose your own, look for farm shops and greengrocers in your area which usually have paper bags but you can also take your own to bring items home in.
- Milk deliveries are getting so popular again, it’s another great way to support local farmers and you can leave your glass bottles out for them to collect and reuse doing away with the endless plastic milk cartons.
- A lot of supermarkets have recycling points for their carrier bags and it’s worth noting that you can also put stretchy plastic in many of them too so things like bread bags. Just check first as different places have different policies. If you have time, making your own bread can be far easier then you might imagine!
You can also change your kitchen lighting to LED bulbs, something which I talked about in last month’s post. There are many more ideas on the SaveMoneyCutCarbon website, for more details on their pay monthly club which gets you the best rate on so many eco-friendly products and to see what we think of it, click here.
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