How to Be Environmentally Friendly in the Kitchen [15 Actionable Tips]

With Earth Day coming up, I thought it was only fitting to give y’all some basic tips for how to be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen. 

First of all, why be more eco-friendly at all? For me, it’s not only about saving the planet (because let’s be real—climate change is happening whether we’re willing to recognize it or not), but it’s also about being less wasteful overall. I am not a fan of our consumerist, throw-everything-away-when-we’re-done-with-it, short-term culture over here in the US. I hate throwing something into a dumpster for it to go to a landfill, because it’s not a great use of the resources I’ve been given. 

There is the whole movement to be zero waste, but for me I honestly don’t have the time to be completely zero waste. So I try to be as low waste as possible. It’s really difficult to be zero waste currently, because we don’t live in a society where big corporations care enough to create products that make it easy to be zero waste. 

Also, even if individuals go zero- or low-waste, it may feel like it doesn’t make a difference because the corporations don’t care, and they create most of the waste in the world. 

I totally agree that it would be great to see corporations change their habits, but corporations follow the people’s lead—we have so many more vegan, dairy-free, sugar-free, high-fructose corn-syrup-free, and organic options in grocery stores now than we did even 5 years ago because that’s the current movement. Those are the things that normal individuals want; therefore, the corporations are producing them. 

So does me being low waste make a difference? Maybe not, but it makes me feel much less wasteful. I like to do what I can to use my resources wisely and be a good steward of what I’ve been given. 

15 Tips to go low-waste and be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen

Okay, so now that we’ve covered the basic thought processes out there surrounding low-waste living, let’s talk about some ways to be low-waste 

1. Use reusable grocery bags

Does anyone else come home from the grocery store with an insane amount of plastic (or paper) bags?? Changing to reusable bags changed my life! 

Besides creating less waste, my favorite thing about using reusable grocery bags is that I can fit SO many more items in a cloth bag! I end up walking out of the grocery store with all my items in 2-3 cloth bags, whereas before I might have needed ten plastic bags. For all my people who are stubborn like me and carry all your groceries in the house in one trip no matter how many bags you have—this is a HUGE life-saver! 

Now, where do you get reusable grocery bags? If you aren’t like me and don’t have an insane amount of reusable bags already, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Ross, Wal-Mart, and Target usually have an abundant supply of bags with cute sayings on them. And if you can’t find any there, Amazon is always a solid backup. 

2. Use reusable produce bags–or no produce bags at all 

Anyone ever stopped to think about why we put sweet potatoes or onions in a plastic bag to check out? Ummm…why do you need a plastic bag for that? Short answer — you don’t. 

At this point, I put mostly the wet produce (lettuce, kale, herbs, etc) and the smaller produce I buy in bulk (brussel sprouts, carrots, green beans, etc) in my reusable grocery bags. A short list of produce items that I don’t put in bags at all include: 

• Apples
• Oranges
• Sweet potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Peppers
• Avocados 

For these items, I simply set them in my cart. When I check out, I group them together. I’ve gotten some funny looks from the cashiers when checking out, but overall people tolerate my lack of produce bags pretty well. 

3. Compost your vegetable scraps (and so much more!)

Growing up basically on a farm, we always had animals who would eat our produce scraps, so very little went in the trash can. When I moved to an apartment, I quickly found out your neighbors don’t like it very much if you throw food scraps into the grass to decompose naturally (there’s a story there for another time…). 

But I feel awful throwing scrap produce into a dumpster. Enter the era in my life of vermicomposting, or using earthworms to compost. I composted:

• Cardboard
• Tea leaves
• Coffee grounds
• Paper
• Produce scraps
• Compostable plates/utensils you can now use instead of paper plates and plastic utensils

I absolutely loved vermicomposting, but my husband was not so thrilled. So enter the second option: I looked up people around me that compost. You can do this via sharewaste.com. Simply enter your location, and it shows people around you that can use your scraps and why they want them! 

There are also several companies in Cincinnati that will take away my produce scraps for a fee, but I realize that is likely only available in larger cities. 

Why not just throw your vegetable scraps in the landfill dumpster—they’ll decompose naturally that way, right? Technically yes, but the food is likely to be tied up in a plastic trash bag, meaning the nutrients in the food can’t return to the soil without access to natural oxygen and light. The food rots and eventually produces methane gas. Not great, and not ideal if your aim is to be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen.

4. Stop wasting food

Did you know it is estimated somewhere between 30-40% of food in America is wasted? I know I’m not perfect at eating all the food in my fridge before it goes bad, but recently I’ve been trying to be more conscientious about wasting less food. 

What are my easy tips for wasting less food? First, simply buy the food you need. This is why I meal plan. Every week I make a loose menu of three meals for my husband and myself, create the grocery list, and only buy the ingredients I need for those three meals plus any snacks or staple items. This significantly cuts down on our waste, because I know exactly what I bought and what I’m going to use it for. 

The next thing I do is follow the first-in-first-out principle. This is exactly what it sounds like: whatever you put in the fridge first should be what you eat first. If I go to the grocery store and haven’t finished the food from the week before, I always move the oldest food to the front so I don’t forget about it. It’s an easy, low time-investment way to ensure you eat the oldest food first. 

5. Don’t peel your produce

Now this may seem weird to some of you, but I don’t peel carrots, potatoes, or sweet potatoes. If I can eat the peeling, I do! Of course, I still peel oranges, grapefruit, and bananas, but those peelings actually make a difference in how the food tastes. The peeling of a carrot or potato doesn’t make a huge difference when you’re cooking it anyway. 

6. Use reusable sandwich bags instead of plastic Ziploc bags

There are SO many options for reusable food bags, so you don’t even need plastic Ziploc bags at all anymore. I love Stasher bags, but you can also find reusable cloth bags that are sandwich-size. The great thing is these are made to last, and they really do last forever! 

They’re an investment, but seriously… the price of single-use Ziploc bags that you immediately throw away also adds up fast. Especially since my goal is to. be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen, I’d rather have a reusable product that costs more up front and will last me years than something that seems cheap in the moment but actually costs more in the long run. 

7. Use beeswax wraps or cloth covers instead of plastic wrap

Beeswax wraps are a little tricky to get the hang of and don’t always cling to the container like I want them to, but I’ve gotten used to them. There are also cloth covers that have elastic in them, so they stretch to cover the container then snap back to provide a seal. Both are excellent options instead of plastic wrap! 

8. Use silicone baking sheets instead of parchment paper

I bought these a couple of months ago, and can I say “life-changer??” I use these when I’m roasting vegetables, making cookies, rolling out dough—basically for ALL the things. 

9. Use glass or stainless steel storage containers instead of plastic

This doesn’t seem like a huge deal, but I love my glass containers because they last longer, don’t change color, and don’t leach toxins into my foods as plastic containers do. There are so many more reasons to ditch plastic than to be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen, especially when it comes to plastic’s effects on your health. Switching to glass is a win-win-win in my book! 

10. Reuse food jars

Spaghetti jars, peanut butter jars, pickle jars—all those glass food jars can be reused for storage containers of any kind! 

I have so many jars, I actually need to get rid of some, but I literally put everything in them. I haven’t actually bought a mason jar in years because I reuse my food jars instead. It doesn’t look quite as symmetrical or ‘nice’ as using all the same size jar, but hey—I’m here to add character to things!

11. Make your own bread

This one seems like a lot, but seriously, I spend an hour in total every week making a loaf of bread, and I have so much less waste! I halve this recipe to make one loaf, and it usually lasts my husband and me the whole week. 

Pro tip: Store the loaf of bread in a cloth bread bag in the fridge so it doesn’t dry out too much.

12. Use swedish dishcloths or unpaper towels instead of paper towels

Swedish dishcloths and unpaper towels (which are just cloth paper towels) are an excellent alternative to regular paper towels because you wipe up the mess and can re-wash it over and over and over again! 

13. Revamp your morning coffee

Coffee filters are an unnecessary waste! If you want to be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen, consider the many other ways to make coffee without creating trash. I use a stainless steel pour over and Bialetti espresso maker to make my morning coffee.  

You can also get a reusable filter basket for your basic drip coffee maker—Nicole uses one she bought at her local Kroger.

And I don’t have a Keurig, so I don’t use a reusable K-cup, but I know my parents have in the past. They tell me it works just as well as using single-use K-cups. Bonus for this one: you get to pick your own coffee instead of being constrained to what the Keurig company thinks you’ll like! 

14. Buy loose-leaf tea for hot tea

This may seem intimidating, but consider buying loose-leaf tea and using a tea strainer or tea infuser to make your hot tea. It works beautifully, and then you aren’t throwing away the tea bags!

15. Use silicone muffin cups instead of paper muffin cups

I used to pour my batter straight into the muffin tin, but let’s be real… I hate cleaning my muffin tin. 

Enter silicone muffin cups. They make my life so much easier, and when the muffins or cupcakes are cool, you just pop them out of the silicone! So easy, and so much less wasteful. 

How to be more environmentally friendly in the kitchen: Final thoughts

The list above is just some of the things I do to create less waste in my kitchen, and of course I’m not perfect at always doing all of these things. I’m only human, after all!

I still buy bread every once in a while when I don’t have time to make it. And sometimes I forget my reusable grocery bags at home and use paper instead. But I try my best to reduce my waste. 

The important thing for me is not that I am perfectly zero waste or that I perfectly follow all of the above things, but rather that I do what I can, when I can, and I am conscientious about the choices I make. 

Hopefully this list gives you some ideas for how to be more eco-friendly, and if you have more ideas, please share them below! 

🌎 Happy Earth Day,
Elana