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If you’re accountable for a vacation meal, you’re centered on menu planning, gathering high quality substances, and making a festive environment. You additionally need your kitchen to be as clear as doable and your celebration to be super-wholesome and eco-friendly. That consists of making secure and pure cleansing selections as you prep — and when you prepare dinner.
Cooking will be pure and a foundational step within the recycling and composting course of, if you happen to observe just a few easy guidelines to cut back meals waste and toxins associated to kitchen cleansing, it might probably make a giant distinction for the planet.
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Set Up
Make certain your cooking instruments and surfaces are clear and gleaming with ThreeMain’s biodegradable, non-toxic merchandise. ThreeMain’s dish soap, multi-surface cleaner, and bathroom cleaner are available refillable aluminum bottles. By utilizing the corporate’s refill pouches, you’ll be able to generate much less plastic waste than ordering conventional bottled cleaners. Plus, ThreeMain donates 3% of profits to the Rozalia Project to scrub and defend our oceans. Rozalia Project founder Rachael Z. Miller was recently on the Sustainability In Your Ear podcast; tune in to be taught extra.
For an intensive kitchen prep, you would wipe down all of your surfaces with VEO Active-Probiotic Surface Cleaner. The cleaner is 99% biodegradable and is available in a bottle manufactured from 95% recycled plastic. The interesting apple jasmine scent will produce sweet-smelling and totally clear kitchen surfaces. The product is marketed as having “cutting-edge biotechnology and the facility of nature to ship a microscopic degree of unpolluted” that leaves surfaces deeply hygienic for as much as three days.
Sanitize
Holiday prep will be chaotic, particularly if you happen to’re placing collectively a feast for a crowd or working in a small kitchen. Cleaning when you prepare dinner is the perfect method to keep away from main clean-up later.
Choose reusable cloth towels or cleaning cloth made of renewable bamboo for each counter so you’ll be able to wipe off your palms everytime you want them for one more job with out racking up the paper towels or napkins.
If you’re working with eggs or uncooked meats, spritz your palms with Dr. Bronner’s natural hand sanitizer. These pocket-sized sprays are chemical-free, moisturizing, and have a nice peppermint and lavender herb scents. Stash them in your counters or in your apron with out hogging treasured prep area, and with out worrying about what substances could possibly be invading your meals.
Mop
Don’t have time to do an intensive clear of your kitchen’s wooden, tile, stone, or laminate flooring? Do a fast once-over to choose up the crumbs, hair, lint, and dirt which have collected. NatureZway floor wipes are rayon produced from bamboo cellulose and can be utilized dry or moist. They work with any mop that permits you to tuck wipes into the grippers on the pinnacle.
Wipe
Avoid breaking out the cleansing wipes and sprays till you’ve wrapped up your cooking duties. The Nano Glove requires solely water to cleanse any floor — kitchen counter, reducing board, fridge handles, and past. This useful device makes it a lot simpler to scrub pesky meals or particles out of corners and crevices.
NatureZway presents perforated towels manufactured from sustainable bamboo which might be reusable — they declare that every sheet will be rinsed as much as 100 occasions or extra. Though these multi-surface cloths are an elevated model of the paper towel and save timber; nevertheless, the rolls are packaged in plastic.
Clean Up
You can be ok with your post-meal cleanup if you wash soiled plates, flatware, and glasses with a pure wood and tampico brush. Or go for a brush with a stainless steel handle and replaceable brush head. Scrub pots and pans naturally with a stainless steel (right here’s Earth911’s guide to recycling steel scrub pads) or biodegradable natural loofah dish scrubber.
You might cleaning soap up your soiled dishes together with your ThreeMain liquid dish soap within the refillable aluminum bottle, or strive True Green’s Sparkle Clean 100% natural dishwashing liquid. Sparkle Clean is secure on your dishwasher in addition to hand washing dishes. And it’s concentrated, so that you want just some drops within the sink or a teaspoon or much less in your dishwasher.
Finally, be sure to have your stainless steel bento boxes on the prepared for leftovers and post-holiday lunches!
Editor’s Note: This article was initially printed on November 13, 2019, and was up to date with new merchandise in October 2024.
