Make your Kitchen Go Green
Today, one of the major concerns of the world is the continuous depletion of natural resources. When construction materials, machinery or furniture are no longer usable, the usual method is to throw these away creating considerable amounts of eco-waste in the process. With a significant rise in pollution hampering the balance of the ecosystem, reusing, recycling and repairing are the talks of the day. Yes, we need to refurbish what we have squandered! Companies have already started stressing upon the importance of going green. You can also do your own bit to make eco-friendly living a truth.
Eco-friendly Kitchen furniture
It’s a very good idea to start off with the kitchen. You can make your kitchen accessories as well as storage units entirely eco-sustainable. Take the case of kitchen furniture like countertops, islands, counters, shelves and cabinets. It’s time to stop using hardwood and metals from natural ores to manufacture such materials. Hardwood trees such as walnut and oak take considerable time to grow and so it is difficult to replace them once they are used for making furniture. Same is the case for natural ores which take eons to grow beneath the earth’s crust once they are mined.
Compressed wood or recycled metal is a good alternative to go eco-friendly with your kitchen. Compressed wood is produced from wood pulp obtained from fast growing soft wood trees. Moreover, kitchen furniture can also be manufactured from cent percent recycled metals such as iron and aluminum. Glass is also a very good alternative. Good amount of innovation has made it possible to successfully recycle glass to be used as wall shield, tiles for ceiling and floor and countertop stuff. Glass furniture also looks stunning and graceful in the kitchen.
Cooking and Storing the Eco-friendly Way
Eco-friendly cooking can be done in induction cookers which consume lesser amount of energy and also cooks much faster than electric or gas. Innumerable options are available in the market nowadays for eco-sustainable storage and it’s probable that already your kitchen has some green storing facilities. Before discussing in details about the possible eco-friendly storage facilities, let me remind you of something that you must be intensively using. Yes, it’s plastic! Plastic wraps made out of polyvinyl chloride or PVC created a revolution in the 1950s with the use-and-throw concept that was a delight for every busy homemaker. Plastic wraps clubbed with aluminum foils are still in vogue now.
But what we fail to understand is that ultra modernity comes with its own price, which is often too heavy to pay. Reportedly, consumption of food stored in plastic wraps disrupts hormonal balance causing thyroid, miscarriage, infertility and other health concerns. Aluminum has been held responsible for Alzheimer’s disease and the production of aluminum foils greatly pollutes the ecosystem.
A good way to be green with the food storage units is to go for glass or stainless steel containers. They are a bit expensive but healthy and eco-friendly. Glass containers are ideal for storing stews, soups and food leftovers. Broken glass can be easily recycled. Moreover, glass doesn’t get stained or emit odors and is microwave safe. Coming to stainless steel, it is one of the best options for food storage. Food remains fresh in stainless steel containers and they are also good to clean and are non-breakable yet reusable.
When it comes to eco-friendly kitchen accessories and storage units, two aspects should be considered. The foremost is safety, that is, whether the product is free of chemicals are harmful to the human body and the environment. Secondly, whether the product has the potential to be recycled and reused. As discussed, we can easily contribute our little bit to restore the environmental balance by adopting green kitchen concepts. While keeping ourselves healthy, let us as well create a healthy environment.
