Tips for a Greener Kitchen

Here are a few recommendations for greening up your kitchen:

1. Spray Mister for Cooking Oil: Instead of wasting money and filling the land fill with disposable spray cans at the grocery store, visit a kitchen supply store and buy a spray mister which you can fill with your favorite oil. If you use several different kinds of oils (extra virgin olive oil, olive oil, peanut oil, et. al.), buy a mister for each kind. The misters come in a variety of colors and shapes for you to distinguish one from the other.

2. Towels: Ditch the paper towels and use dish towels, old towels, whatever is on hand. These you can toss in the washing machine and reuse over and over.

3. Cloth napkins. Stock up during the sales after each holiday and you'll slowly build your inventory. Have each member of your family choose a color or pattern each week, then when it's time to wash a load of towels, just toss them in.

4. Appliances: When it's time for a new appliance, consider an ENERGY STAR appliance which will save you money by using less electricity and water (where applicable). These machines are designed to work better, smarter, faster.

5. Spices: Buy good spices in small quantities. This will ensure that they stay fresh, thus enhancing the flavors of your culinary creations.

6. Microfiber cloths: Linen towels used to be the best for drying dishes and now microfiber cloths have come along to do the work of both cleaning and drying everything in your home from dishes, to furniture, to floors, and beyond.

7. Baker's Racks and Pot Racks: These make a great display of your pots and pans that you use on a regular basis, keeping them handy, yet out of the way.

8. Cook: Plan your meals and cook at home. This will save you money and with a little preparation, you can have a home-cooked meal even on those busy days when you are walking in the door at dinner time. There are delivery companies that will ship groceries to you. Better yet, get together with some friends to prepare meals or go shopping together and split the cost of bulk items.

9. Crockpots: Yes, there really are good recipes for meals you can toss into the crockpot on your way out the door in the morning or if you have a busy day planned at home.

10. The refrigerator: clean the coils, reseal it if you can pull a dollar bill out from the door when it's closed, and reset the temperature--cooler in the summer time and warmer during the winter months.

Feel free to add your tips and tricks below.

Enjoy your day,
Suzanne

Granite counter-tops going out of style

This article is just an FYI.
Granite counter-tops, once all-the-rage, are now on their way out, which means this may be a mute point.
My understanding is quartz is a better choice if you are looking for a natural element.

http://greenbuildingelements.com/2009/02/02/hostile-granite-showrooms-refuse-to-discuss-radiation/#more-890

Recycling Roanoke one home at a time.

Back to Basics, Green Style

I'm hearing more and more about people getting back to the basics in today's economy. Grandma's advice is being referenced more and more, especially about saving for a rainy day. To paraphrase Dave Ramsey, you know it's going to rain, so you may as well save for it. Saving money, not spending everything you bring in is certainly smart, and some of the ways you can save around the house is by doing some of the basics of being green. The three basics you are probably most familiar with are reduce, reuse, and recycle. What do these mean and what are some examples, you ask?

Reduce--cut back. Lowering your thermostat a degree or two in the winter and raising it a bit in the summer will help lower your energy costs. Ways to cut back on your water usage include taking shorter showers and not as many baths. By composting kitchen scraps and recycling your trash, you can reduce or eliminate the number of times you take your trash can to the curb. These are just a few of the ways to help reduce your consumption of energy, water, and solid waste.

Reuse--Find another use for an item to prolong its life. Turn an item into something else, thus creating a new use for it. If you don't love an item anymore, but it still has some life left in it, check with your local Freecycle group , Goodwill, Salvation Army, Craigs List, local consignment store, or have a yardsale. One person's trash is another person's treasure, right? Also, if you are in need of an item, don't forget to check these places first before buying a new one.

Recycling is the process of taking a product at the end of its useful life and using all or part of it to make another product http://earth911.com/recycling/. Many people I have talked to who recycle feel that it is easy to do, especially once it has become part of their normal routine. Landfills are lined at the bottom and lined or capped on top. Unfortunately, all kinds of toxic substances are dumped in them along w/ sharp objects which cut the lining, allowing rain water to filter in and liquids to seep out into the ground and eventually our water table. This means our rivers, lakes, and oceans where we play, as well as our drinking water sources, are at risk for being polluted.

For many of you, this may have been a rather elementary lesson on reducing, reusing, and recycling; a back to basics review if you will. In the upcoming weeks, I will bring you more info that I hope will be useful, informative, and especially motivational. Feel free to send me questions and your comments are most welcome. Would you be kind enough to tell me how you are reducing, reusing, and recycling? I'll start--I recycle most of our 'trash', so much so, that we only have to take our trash can to the curb about once a month.

Recycling Roanoke one home at a time,
Suzanne