Looking towards eco friendly living? Star from your kitchen !
Looking towards eco friendly living? Star from your kitchen !
Growing up, I never thought about reducing waste. But I have seen my grandmother collecting all the recyclables (like milk bags, bottles, papers) and selling it to the vendors and buying something else to the similar value, kind of like in store credits for all those push cart street side entrepreneurs. I have not seen a plastic storage organizers in the kitchen, its mostly stainless steel containers, if not brass or bronze. Also, I remember also using a cloth bag, or a jute bag for grocery store or shopping hauls. The most important thing was, we can almost always get anything from bulk section. Its usually packed for us in the old newspaper sheets.
But, with the growing industrialization and world of convenience, I feel we may have lost our way in reducing our carbon foot print. For me, that glass shattering moment was a decade ago, when I couldn’t any longer store and organize the plastic bags that I got home from the stores. Being that person, not even thinking about usage of materials, I started feeling heavy for using so many plastic bags. I realized no-one is forcefully making me use it. All I had to say was “NO, thank you”. The first thing I did was to buy a couple of cloth bags for all my shopping. I also carried a slim bag that can go inside my hand bag.
This first change spiraled into lot of changes and here I am sharing with you my top 5 favorite switches that can be made
Water Jug - We often go on day trips and road trips. Instead of buying single use plastic bottles, we invested in this water jug and filled it with water from home and in between breaks we simply refill our bottles and we are good to go.
Bamboo paper towels - I have 10 set of Kitchen hand towels and 10 kitchen cleaning towels for everyday use. This by itself has reduced my paper towel use. But sometimes, I do reach for my towels when there is lots of spillage or to clean the crumbs. But beginning of the COVID pandemic while everyone was stocking on the paper towels, I came across the bamboo towel and I have been in love with this ever since. Its so easy to use and clean. I simply throw in my washer and along with my kitchen towels and I can keep reusing these. Once I think, its life is gone, which is at least after few months, I can throw it in my compost bin. How cool is that?
Reusuable cookie sheets - I absolutely love these, they are not only meant as reusable liners, I also use it for rolling roti’s, as scraps collection besides my cutting board, placemats for my kids or simply to cover something which is awkwardly shaped
Reusable ziplock - For the past couple of years I have been meal prepping and when I started I was using containers around the house, but sometimes I needed flexible storage. I have tried different brands, and I love the stasher. They are durable, reliable and easy maintenance.
Instacrate - Collapsible storage crate. Ever since I discovered this, my organizing game has changed a lot. It has way too many purpose,
Cart to crate - I stopped packing groceries in plastic bags, I simply put it my crate from the cart. This is also easy to carry from car boot to kitchen with its ergonomic hold.
Travel - We recently did a 10 day road trip and organizing a baby and toddler items was manageable. The best part was this is stackable can utilize the vertical space.
Laundry - No one needs explanation here. This makes me sorting and transferring laundry to different rooms have been so easy.
Moving - Transferring miscellaneous things to different floor or while picnicking in the park
These are my top 5, What are your favorite eco friendly substitute? If you love to hear more like these leave me a comment below.