In keeping with this year’s theme of living with intention, I have been doing my best in being mindful of the environment. There’s so many ways to be more environmentally friendly and many can start in the kitchen. There is so much kitchen waste that I’ve decided to share my top tips on how to create a more sustainable kitchen.
First of all, I did write a post on how to be more eco-friendly for beginners so there’s some easy tips there but I wanted to add some other tips that I thought could be even more helpful!
Eat less meat
Believe it or not but 30% of the Earth’s surface is being used to raise and support livestock. According to a United Nations study, “the livestock sector accounts for 9% of CO2 deriving from human-related activities but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65% of human-related nitrous oxide.” Livestock bred for our consumption releases methane gas into our environment which contributes to environmental pollution. So cutting back on meat consumption is an important step to reducing the overall emission of these gases. Less livestock will mean we also have more land that will be freed to use for other purposes.
It’s not just plastic we need to reduce using, it’s paper.
I touched on this in my other blog post on eco-friendly living but I think it’s a good one to repeat. Using less paper can also help the environment. All of those paper towels you use in a day can easily be replaced by tea towels. The less paper that you use, the less that needs to be produced and more trees can continue to fill our forests. 🙂 If you do have to use paper towels, always make sure to recycle it. By recycling one ton of paper this will save 17 mature trees!
Don’t continue to buy cotton tote bags.
I know that seems so counterintuitive because people generally buy cotton tote bags to reduce their plastic waste when going to the grocery store. However, I read an interesting article that states that cotton tote bags actually have to be used thousands of times to have the same environmental footprint as a lightweight plastic bag. In other words, you will have to use each of your tote bags thousands of times in order for it to have a positive environmental impact.
Turn off the sink.
If you have a dishwasher, especially an energy efficient one, you can save gallons of water. If you wash your dishes by hand you use up to 27 gallons of water per load, comparatively if you use the dishwasher, you can use as little as 3 gallons per load.
Compost.
Compost bins reduce waste and also allow plants to grow better in gardens! If you don’t have a community compost bin that is easily accessible to you, you can also compost at home! There is a science to it to getting the right mix. Here is a resource that helps you with the step by step!
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