When I first started on my journey to being sustainable, I knew right off the bat that I needed to change my life in small chunks. Changing my life so I had zero waste and lived with a zero carbon footprint wasn’t possible overnight. Thus, I made myself a game plan. First, I had started becoming sustainable through conscious, mindful shopping and practicing slow fashion. Then, I made sure that all the beauty products I used was cruelty-free.
Now, I’m shifting my focus towards the rest of my life. My strategy was to reduce the amount of trash I throw away, and one of the first things I wanted to do was to start using reusable goods to eliminate waste (I’m sure we’re all familiar with the straws “controversy”). It was easier in my mind to start living sustainably by tackling one area of the house, and tackling the kitchen seemed natural.
What had started off as reusable cups and straws soon turned into a whole new way for me to change everything in my kitchen to be reusable or sustainable. What’s even more amazing is that there are only 3 simple steps you need to change your kitchen to be a sustainable, low-waste space.
Step 1: Anything that is plastic can easily be replaced with something reusable
Plastic is everywhere, but that doesn’t mean it needs to rule your home. Two amazing reusable goods will save your life from plastic: reusable sandwich bags and reusable lid covers. What I love about this simple trick of not buying any more Ziploc bags and plastic wrap is that you don’t go out of your way to inconvenience yourself. It’s easy to pop these in the dishwasher or take a minute and rinse them out by hand. Giving up plastic wrap won’t be the end of the world, and depending on how often you have leftovers, you could be saving yourself from a lot of plastic usage. And that adds up! Not to mention, plastic wrap tears too easily and is such a hassle to use.
Step 2: Bring a reusable grocery bag and produce bags when grocery shopping
With the recent plastic ban in New York (which, first off, is about time), a reusable grocery bag makes sense. You save on the extra 10 cents per bag. What you may not have thought about is a reusable produce bag. If you never use the plastic produce bag in the grocery stores, then you’re a super star (grocery stores coloring the plastic produce bag green is another classic example of greenwashing, by the way). However, for those of us who do love the cleanliness of having a produce bag, I highly recommend getting yourself a reusable, mesh produce bag. I love to just pop them inside my grocery bag so that I never forget to bring these to the grocery store with me!
Step 3: Reduce your food wastage by counting your macros or using a meal delivery service
This last step is something I could write a whole blog post on, but I did want to touch upon the importance of sustainability in food. We focus quite a bit on making sure that our food is non-GMO, organic, humane, and any other certification or label you can think of. What we sometimes don’t consider, however, is that we should also be focusing on reducing our food wastage. According to the FDA, food waste is about 30-40% of the entire food supply. In 2010, this equated to approximately 133 billion pounds of food!
I now am super conscious not only about what food I buy, but also about how much food I buy. Part of the reason why I love meal delivery services is because I get portioned meals to reduce waste (my newest obsession is Martha and Marley Spoon). Something else I have been doing is tracking my macros (i.e. tracking how many calories and grams of protein, fat, and carbs) I have each day. This has allowed me to realize that I don’t need as much food as I am imagining, and it has really helped me to stay healthy (you can check out my daily fitness and daily meals on my Insta stories).
Overall, the steps aren’t hard to do, and it really adds up!
I can’t tell you how often I think to myself that one plastic straw here or there won’t matter, and how long I kept thinking that using plastic wrap doesn’t matter. In the end, even the smallest efforts we can do will add up, and honestly, if we’re spending less money on buying things like plastic wrap, all the better for our wallets, right? I would love to hear other ways you are making your kitchen sustainable down in the comments below! If you decide to follow these tips and find them useful, tag me on social media @missclaireshay, and I’d love to connect! Shop the three reusable goods I love below!
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