7 Ways to Make Your Kitchen More Eco Friendly
We’re all aware of the importance of sustainable living and, adopting eco-friendly habits in the kitchen is another step in the right direction. Planning ahead to ensure you don’t over-buy food and recycling packaging are two simple ways to do your bit, but what if you want to do more? This blog explores which design elements can be included in your new kitchen and the changes you can make or add to your existing kitchen, keeping environmental impact in mind.
1. Install an Instant Boiling Water Tap.
A boil tap means no more overfilling the kettle, boiling more water than you actually need and wasting electricity and water. The filtered water comes out of the tap at 98° (comparable to water poured from a boiled kettle) and is perfect for making hot drinks and filling pans for pasta etc. The standard 3-in-1 taps have a hot/cold mixer on one side and the boiling water feature on the other side (complete with safety switch.) Top of the range boil taps also have filtered, chilled and sparkling water.
2. Invest in a Clever Fridge
Appliance manufacturers are developing fridges with technology to ensure your food stays fresher for longer. ‘PerfectFresh Pro’ by Miele has an automatically controlled temperature range between 0°C and +3°C resulting in meat, fish and dairy products staying fresh for up to three times longer. Optimised humidity controls on the drawer means that fruit and veg retain their freshness for up to five times longer too.
3. Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Being aware when the food in your cupboards passes its use by/best before dates is the ideal way to ensure you use what you have before buying more. If it’s all piled up in the back of cupboards though, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Keeping food packets and tins neatly lined up in your drawers or cupboards means they’re clearly visible and, with the shortest dates at the front, you know that you’ll be using the food in the correct order. If you’re investing in a new kitchen, there are plenty of storage solutions that can be included to help keep you organised including corner solutions, drawers with storage boxes and pull down storage for those hard to reach high cupboards.
4. Energy Efficient Appliances
New appliances are tested for energy efficiency by measuring the amount of kilowatts per hour used. The fewer units of energy used, the better the rating. They’re rated from G (the least efficient) to A+++ (the most efficient) so ideally you want to opt for appliances of A+ or more. It’s worth checking the rating on your new white goods as an A+++ appliance will give you a massive 20% energy saving.
5. Hidden Help
Spending your valuable time sorting waste into different bins every time you take the rubbish out can be a little tedious but, equally you don’t want your kitchen floor or worktops to be littered with different bags and recycling bins. A concealed recycling bin system, with different compartments for each type of waste installed into a cupboard or deep drawer is the perfect solution. Easily accessible and easy to empty, there’s no excuse, for even the smallest members of the family, not to recycle and reduce the amount of waste your household sends to landfill.
6. LEDs
LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes) have many advantages over incandescent light sources including improved physical robustness, longer lifetime and lower energy consumption. Because of these benefits, LEDs are used in all sorts of places as well as domestic lighting – aviation lighting, car headlamps, traffic signals, camera flashes and medical devices. In the kitchen, LED strip lights give subtle lighting when used to highlight the perimeter of an island unit, the under-side of wall units or at the back of open shelving. Traditional spotlights are now being replaced by LED versions which, due to the high number generally used in a kitchen ceiling, will save a lot of energy…and money in the long run.
7. Food Waste Disposal
If you’re lucky, your local authority will provide a food caddy, biodegradable bags and a weekly food waste collection service, but around 40% of food waste generated in the UK is still disposed of via landfill. This is because not everyone has this service from their council or they choose not to use it. An alternative to a food caddy is a waste disposal system fitted under your kitchen sink. A food waste disposer grinds food waste into tiny particles which are then automatically flushed away down a standard kitchen drain. Instead of going to landfill, your food waste can yield valuable biogas and other vital soil nutrients which can be recovered at the wastewater treatment plant which means you’re not only avoiding the food going to landfill, you’re actually helping put nutrients back into the earth.
In Conclusion: Whether you’re replacing your kitchen and have the opportunity to include systems and gadgets that will make a positive impact on your household’s waste of food, money and energy or, just making minor changes to your existing kitchen…small changes by everyone will add up to a big difference to our planet.
