Spring has arrived and with much talk about Spring cleaning. For many of us the most important room in the house is the kitchen. We spend a lot of time there preparing the meals of the day and eating many of them too.
Maintaining a green kitchen or green home doesn’t need to be as overwhelming as it sounds. You just need to do a little planning and enlist the help of your family. Start with one of these options and grow into the rest with time. Begin by switching to an organic multi purpose cleaning product that you can dilute with water. Try shopping at farmstands or local grocers and recycling. On a rainy day you can take the next step and think about repurposing items like linens, keeping a small countertop composter for vegetable scraps and coffee grounds or planting some herbs. All of these are ways to provide a healthy home, reduce your carbon footprint and save some money.
I hope you’ll try some of these green kitchen tips and be on your way to enjoying your new organic kitchen.
What you will need: Spray bottles, Castille soap like Dr. Jacobs Organics, essential oils like eucalyptus, peppermint oil and tea tree oil, Bon Ami, white vinegar and old linens.
Multipurpose cleaner: A basic solution you can pour into spray bottles and use for countertops, walls and floors. Dr. Jacobs has a great Peppermint scented soap and a Eucalyptus one as well. During the warmer months you can even safely combat ants and fruit flies by adding a few extra drops of peppermint oil into the solution. But mother nature can’t help you if you leave food out, so make sure someone remembers to take out the garbage and that you wipe down tables and counter tops at the end of meals!
An abrasive cleaner: Bon Ami – for scrubbing pans and your stove top as well as cleaning your sinks and tub area.
Glass cleaner: White vinegar diluted with water to use for cleaning glass and mirrors.
Cut down on paper towels: Repurpose old linens by making rags from old towels to use with the multipurpose cleaner and pieces of old sheets for windows and glass. Newspapers are also a great for glass cleaning.
For these and more green ideas from The Greenporter Hotel, catch our featured article in this month’s Hotel Management Magazine on Green cleaning.
