a green kitchen

I found a blog post about trying to have a wasteless kitchen.  I think it's a pretty good idea.  Use old dishcloths or un-paper towels (see image below) instead of paper towels.  Use linen napkins instead of paper ones, or in my case instead of paper towels.  Use tupperware instead of plastic bags.  And use re-usable produce bags.  I mean, we all already know about using re-usable grocery bags and I have been meaning to get re-usable produce bags for awhile.  As soon as my bank account will allow it, I promise to invest in some.

bottom photo e-towels by Athena Creates

Some things that Kristina wrote about in her post (linked to above) are the fact that even regular canning jars with the two pice lid--the lid and the screw on top--even those contain BPAs.  How crazy is that?  I guess the only safe ones are glass jars with the rubber gasket. And after reading this article, which was linked to by its author in the comments section, I am definitely going to make more of a conscious effort to omit chemicals from my consumption.  I know it's hard, but at least you can try your best at at home, where you can actually control what goes into your food.

A lot of the people who commented on the blog and Kristina herself praised stainless steel lunchbots (pictured above) as a good alternative to plastic tupperware or plastic bags.  And of course, for all of your food wastes you should be composting.  I put our compost into an old, large coffee container.  It's  plastic though, so I should perhaps look into a more sustainable/chemical-free option, like this one:

But what's the use of trying so hard if you just throw everything away in a plastic trash bag?  Well, they make an alternative for that too. You can buy biodegradable trash bags here.  They think of everything, don't they?

Of course, a lot of these are more expensive than what I use now (that bamboo composter will set you back $40), but a lot would definitely save you money in the long run (like the un-paper towels). I figure if you gradually work these things into your lifestyle it'll be more manageable both financially and as a permanent lifestyle change.