After years of making mother earth suffer, it’s high time that we pay back our dues and practices a more eco-friendly lifestyle. The best place to start is in our kitchens, where most of the things we do, especially eating, preparing meals, and all other activities that expend resources.
The kitchen drains the most energy in the house, so it’s obviously where we have to start. There are several options for a more eco-friendly kitchen, and we’ll be discussing 5 of them below.
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The Finishing
What does the design have to do with being eco-friendly? Quite a lot. For one, the materials you use for construction like the surfaces, floors, and even the walls can be made out of eco-friendly material. Additionally, furniture like cabinets can be made with thin sheets of timber glued together to minimize resources and avoid further cutting down trees.
For painting the wall, there are many water-based, environmentally safe paints low in VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds, which have low water solubility and high vapor pressure at room temperature. To make things simpler, VOCs are human-made chemicals that can irritate the eyes, nose, throat, and other organs, possibly damaging the central nervous system.
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The Design
Many people are less taken into account because buildings are built, or rooms are designed and created can also be eco-friendly. Spaces with natural lighting need less artificial lighting, so you won’t have to spend electricity on unnecessary things like lightbulbs. If your kitchen has great natural lighting, you won’t need to use your light up until the sun sets compared to other designs.
The same can be said for well-thought-out ventilation. Open-air designed kitchens and other well-ventilated kitchens no longer need exhaust fans, circulations, and other forms of ventilation that consume energy.
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Energy-Efficient Appliances
As much as we want to cut costs and energy consumption, appliances are essential to the kitchen. Getting rid of our devices altogether is impossible, so the next best step is replacing them with more energy-efficient appliances.
Inverter technology has allowed appliances that previously consumed relatively high energy to consume energy at a lower rate. Improved thermal insulation is also much better for these appliances, so less heat goes into the environment.
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Shop Locally
Shopping locally avoids a trickle effect. People might not understand how shopping locally affects the environment, but it lessens the need for people to ship food to an area. The transit for your groceries contributes to global warming as the planes and trucks used to transport goods consume energy.
It might be tempting to get those bright red tomatoes that you usually get at the supermarket, but it’s so much better to buy from the local market. Additionally, doing this also helps the locals and stimulates the local economy, which is also another good thing!
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Reduce Waste
The kitchen produces the most Waste in the house. The main contributor to this is that most of our packaging and other materials used for our food are made out of plastic or similar non-biodegradable materials.
Reducing Waste is a simple process that starts when you buy your groceries. When we buy groceries, the supermarket takes into account what’s bought more frequently. If we don’t buy plastic packaged goods as much as we used to, there will be fewer plastic wrapped and packaged items on the supermarket shelf and eventually less plastic that goes into our waste bins at home.
CONCLUSION
Transitioning to an eco-friendly kitchen takes time, effort, commitment, and genuine passion for a greener lifestyle. You don’t have to immediately commit to expensive changes like renovations or replace all of your appliances with energy-efficient appliances.
Starting small, like changing your cleaning routines or replacing what you usually buy at the grocery for more eco-friendly options, are already steps in the right direction.