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Paint the Kitchen Green
Use eco-friendly products to prepare your meals
By Sara Wedding
Although we spend a lot of time talking and thinking about food, we don’t always realize that our food choices have a huge impact on the environment. Besides monitoring the types of food we buy and eat, we can also be mindful of the products we use to prepare that food.
Biodegradable, compostable garbage bags are designed to break down in a fraction of the time it takes for normal plastic bags. Most biodegradable plastic bags are made from a blend of plant starch (usually from corn) and petroleum-based polyesters which, until recently, was an expensive process that produced a mediocre product. With technological advances and eco-conscious consumers, brands like BioBag have emerged. These bags still aren’t widely available in mainstream stores, but many natural food co-ops and online retailers carry them. Any time a product’s packaging says it’s biodegradable, look for the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) logo on the packaging to be sure the claim is true.
Recycled paper towels, paper napkins, toilet paper and facial tissues, many of which are free of inks or added dyes, are popping up all over retail shelves. The National Resources Defense Council, an environmental action group, estimates that if every household in the United States replaced one roll of virgin fiber paper towels with 100 percent recycled paper towels, it would save 544,000 trees. Besides buying 100 percent recycled products, look for bleach-free paper products. These will be labeled totally chlorine-free (TCF) or processed chlorine-free (PCF).The NRDC grades paper product brands based on these criteria, and names like Whole Foods’ 365 brand, Earth First and Seventh Generation top the list because of their high percentage (80 percent) of post-consumer content, with Scott and Bounty being the least earth-friendly.
Biodegradable cleaning products like dish soap and surface cleaners from naturally derived ingredients such as corn alcohol and citric acid are soaring in popularity. Method, a San Francisco-based company is a contributor of that success. Inc. magazine even placed Method seventh on its list of 500 fastest-growing companies of 2007. With sleek designs, recycled packaging and fragrances like pink grapefruit, cucumber and lavender, Method appeals to the aesthetically and environmentally conscious consumer. Even Clorox has hopped on the green-clean train by launching its Green Works line of biodegradable, 99 percent petrochemical-free cleaners. In case consumers have trouble equating the name Clorox with “green,” the Sierra Club has lent its logo to the Green Works packaging—for a cut of the profits.