Ways to Make Your Kitchen Low(er) Waste

The kitchen is one of the most wasteful places in your home. Not only does it house the food and food scraps that will potentially go to waste but also the amount of plastic you go through to keep it clean, to do the dishes, plastic dishware/silverware for parties or gatherings and a million other ways plastic gets into your home. It’s time to do some evaluating on your kitchen.

From my other blog posts, I’m sure you know that I am a huge advocate for not buying things that aren't needed. This post is not telling you to go out and buy every zero waste option out there but be cognisant of what you can replace or what you can leave as is. The first step is just looking through your kitchen and seeing what objects you have, what you want or can replace and if you are hoping to rid your kitchen of clutter, find a good home for it either by gifting it, selling it or donating.

Once you've evaluated what you have and what you need, think about whether it can be replaced with something you have already or if you need to find a zero waste object to replace it with. My example of this is always tupperware. Sure - it's made of plastic and probably the first thing you think of when it comes to plastic but why replace all those tupperwares with glass when you have perfectly good containers already?

If you want or need to replace your items, here's the fun part - what items can be easy swaps in your home? Here are a few simple changes I've made:

• Dish Soap to Dish Bar - I replaced my Mrs. Meyer's Lavender Dish Soap with Package Free's Dish Washing Bundle. Why: I was running out of dish soap already so it was an easy transition.

• Ziploc Bags to Reusable Silicone Bags - I replaced the plastic Ziploc bags in my kitchen with a reusable silicone set from Stasher. Why: I was running out of plastic bags and didn't want to purchase another box knowing how wasteful they were. Stasher was having a sale around the time I ran out so I snagged this four pack for a good deal.

• Paper Towels to Unpaper Towels - I have three little cats in my home so I've accepted having to keep paper towels around the house in case of emergency. Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, I keep my paper towels out of reach and have recently purchased Marleys Monster's Unpaper Towels that go on the paper towel roll holder to use as napkins during meal times. I also have a designated kitchen towel used to clean the counters and oven stovetop. Why: This purchase wasn't that necessary but I knew I had to make the switch sometime. I was ordering a few goodies from Package Free and ended up throwing those on the order as well.

• Paper Coffee Filters to a Cotton Filter - We drink coffee religiously around here and go through filters like it's no ones business so it was a no-brainer to replace our paper Chemex filters with a reusable Coffeesock cotton filter. Why: Easy to clean, cheap and lasts for a 1+ years.

• Plastic Produce Bags to Reusable Produce Bags - We use to have an excessive amount of plastic produce bags just lying around, so we recycled and swapped with reusable produce bags. Why: Because plastic bags are one of the most harmful objects to our environment and animal habitats. This was one of the first and probably by far favorite swaps because it's just that simple.

• Save Glass Jars, Especially Sauce Jars - What do you do with your tomato sauce jars when you're done? You should be saving them. Why: Because why buy mason jars from a package when you receive this glass for "free"? (Not really free, but you know what I mean!) These jars are the perfect size for storing food, soups, measuring out ingredients and can be used to store fresh herbs in the fridge (Put some water and your fresh cilantro in the jar and you'll be surprised how much longer it stays fresh.)

These are just some of the swaps or adjustments I've made to my kitchen but there are so many more out there. I am not completely zero waste so I definitely have some items that contain plastic like my dishwasher tablets, aluminum foil for baking, garbage bags and berry containers. I also don't compost... yet. So all of my food waste goes straight to the garbage for now until I can find an easy compost solution. If anyone knows the best way to compost with an 800+ sqft apartment, let me know!

The most important takeaway for making your kitchen as low waste as possible is just being comfortable with the changes, being conscious of the changes you're making and doing smart swaps that benefit you. I find that also having a pretty minimalist kitchen setup helps you see what you need and don't need.

Are you looking to transition your kitchen to low waste? What are some steps you're taking or thinking of taking?