The kitchen is a happy place. Creating delicious, healthy meals is how many of us share love with our friends and family. Despite all good intentions though, the kitchen is typically one of the most wasteful rooms in our home. 

There are plenty of ways to make our kitchens more sustainable and in line with our values.  

In this article, we’ll talk about the 10 best ways to make your kitchen a bit more sustainable and a lot healthier, not only for the planet, but for you too! Let’s dive in. 

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Seven Ways to Green Your Kitchen 

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Purchase food from local farms and purveyors whenever possible

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Buying your food (especially your produce) from local farms and distributors is inherently environmentally friendly and good for your local economy. This is one of the best ways to green your kitchen and your lives, but it also supports the family-owned businesses in your community to create a resilient local economy. How fun it is to get to know your local farms and producers! 

Buying local means less fuel and greenhouse gas emissions unnecessarily transporting products around the world. The transportation industry is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. 

In communities around the country, food co-ops or local farmers’ markets are a great way to support local agriculture. Food co-ops or stores with similar values tend to heavily favor local producers. 

Some of our favorite companies and co-ops supporting local agriculture and makers:  Any organic farm! Luke’s Local, Bi-Rite, Berkeley Bowl, Sprouts Farmers Markets (San Francisco Bay Area), Food Conspiracy Co-op (Tucson), Briarpatch Co-op (Grass Valley), 

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Buy Organic-Certified and opt-in for other sustainably sourced foods

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Buying organic and regeneratively produced food isn’t just about being green, it’s also about improving personal health. Consuming organic foods means less pesticides and harmful toxins for your body. It also means less pesticides and harmful toxins in the soils, water and animals. 

Without pesticides or preservatives, organic foods tend to spoil a little faster. Keep this in mind so you don’t overbuy. Consuming just what you need and reducing waste (spoiler alert…keep reading) is one of the most impactful things you can do to green your kitchen.

And if you’re worried about the price-tag, you’ll be happy to know organic and sustainably-sourced foods are getting cheaper all the time. Organic options are more and more common, and if you buy a little less plus waste a little less, you shouldn’t see your food costs increase. 

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Don’t landfill your food scraps

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Most homeowners still throw away food scraps and ‘unusable’ parts of produce as they prepare their meals. On top of that, many people often get rid of leftovers. In the U.S. nearly 40% of all food is wasted and landfilled! All of that food creation has an enormous carbon footprint and can be repurposed to feed hungry people, animals or be used to nourish our soils. 

There are lots of ways to reduce wasted food in our lives. Starting a home composting system is a great step to green your kitchen, save a bit of money and sequester carbon. 

Nearly 70% of yard and household waste can be used for composting instead of ending up in the trash. In fact, if you eat a lot of fruits, veggies, bread, and cereal, chances are you can stop buying compost or soil from stores! 

The compost you create at home can be used on home gardens to deliver much needed nutrients back into the soils to grow food, flowers and increase organic matter content. All of that organic matter is an incredibly powerful method to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere. 

Some of our favorite companies to help cut out food waste:  Compostable, Compost Nashville, Wompost

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Buy products in bulk 

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Buying in bulk isn’t just cheaper, it’s also far more environmentally friendly. 

Buying in bulk is beneficial to the environment at multiple stages within our food system. Less packaging is required to wrap the product in production facilities, product shipments become more efficient and require less fuel, and less plastic ends up in landfill! 

Reducing your consumption of single-use plastic containers is one of the most effective ways to green your kitchen and pad your bank accounts. 

Some of our favorite companies to help buy in bulk:  Sage Refill Market, Preserve

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Cut the plastic

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Related to bulk buying, removing excess plastic from your kitchen is a wonderful way to green your home. Much of the plastic and packaging for our food ends up in landfills, the ocean or back in nature. The amount of plastic that ends up in our ecosystems can be frightening. 

Scientists estimate that more than 8 million metric tons (that’s roughly 90 aircraft carriers!) of plastic enters our ocean every year. Conventional plastics don’t dissolve, but break apart into micro-plastics that are then ingested by animals and even us! 

Some of our favorite companies to help cut the plastic from your kitchen:  ECOlunchbox, The GoodFill, Package Free, Preserve

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Swap out your fossil-heavy and single-use cleaning supplies

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Things like paper towels and conventional sponges can make up a big proportion of your kitchen waste bin and create a heaping pile of trash in our landfills. Beyond that, using cleaning solutions with chemicals is harmful for your health and those in your home. The production methods for most of the kitchen cleaning materials and solutions on the market are far from sustainable and bad for your health. 

Using reusable or ethically/sustainably sourced materials are a great way to quickly green your kitchen and keep those harmful toxins out of your body. 

Ensuring that materials break down easily in the environment is taking one additional but necessary step. 

Some of our favorite companies for sustainably cleaning your kitchen:  Qucurby, Meliora Cleaning Products, Branch Basics, A Drop In The Ocean

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Recycle

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And finally, we come to recycling. There are numerous products and tools that can be recycled - even plastic in some cases. Nowadays, we’re seeing more and more plastic products have the words ‘made from recycled plastic’ on them. 

We may never eliminate plastic entirely, but we can make sure not to add even more to the growing, gigantic pile of plastic we’ve already made. That is why every environmentally conscious citizen needs to do their part in recycling materials that can be recycled.

Don’t just throw it in the trash - take it to a recycling center so it can be reused instead of left in a garbage pile at the side of the road. Also - do not litter!

Some of our favorite companies for recycling:  Recyclops & Terracycle

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Final Words

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There are a surprising number of changes we can make to our lifestyle to make it greener for the planet and healthier for ourselves. 

Beyond the kitchen, one of the most impactful things you can do to green your life is to opt in to sustainable banking. Atmos provides climate-positive bank accounts, fully liquid. Every dollar deposited supports renewable energy in the U.S., reducing emissions to meet science-based targets. Atmos measures the carbon impact of every dollar, offers nationally leading savings rates and cash-back rewards (including on all companies highlighted in this article and hundreds more!), and makes it easier to support a wide range of environmental organizations. As your primary banking service or simply a better savings account, start making measurable climate impact today by opening an account with Atmos. Apply in just two minutes. 

Starting from our homes, the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, even the dining room - everything is open for lifestyle improvements. Besides, most of the ‘greening’ process saves money and adds other benefits as well. Smaller water bills to pay, less trash to get rid of, cheaper food (sometimes). It’s all there, we just have to grab it and make it ours! Good luck and keep fighting the good fight!