5 easy swaps for your green kitchen.

We all want to make the switch to sustainable brands. But it can become just another thing on the to do list. So here are 5 easy kitchen swaps you can make right now which will make your life so much easier you’ll find it hard to believe you hadn’t made them earlier.

The kitchen is a great place to start with easy sustainable swaps

Did you know that around half of the choices you make everyday are on autopilot? 

Because the brain is an energy intensive piece of kit, a lot of executive functions are relegated to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia that just runs the same habits over and over again.

So when we change our habits we need to override our autopilot.

Oh no, your probably thinking, there is no way I have the energy for that. However, the good news is that once we’re through the hump of altering the habit, the new pattern of behaviour embeds and becomes second nature so you never have to think about it again.

At Green Salon, we’re here to support those habit changes, so that you can choose new habits that are better for your health and the planet. We always start with the simple steps and build on those. So here are 5 easy swaps for the kitchen. Take them one at a time, celebrate your wins and build on your success. And don’t forget if you ever need any motivation or clarification, that’s what we’re here for.

Bower Collective* are our favourite household refillables company

Refillables

Bower Collective* is our go-to refillables brand. They have our favourite washing up liquid*, which also happens to have recently won Good Housekeeping’s Washing Up liquid of the year. And we love their hand-wash* too. All of their products are made largely with natural ingredients, although some may contain a minimal amount of synthetic chemicals.

But our favourite bit of all is their subscription service which automatically delivers your refill products to your doorstep right when you need them. It takes a bit of fiddling around to work out how often you’ll need the refills but once you’ve got it sussed, your washing up liquid simply arrives as if by magic when you need it.

And when you’ve collected a handful of refill packages, pop them in the free-post envelope and send them back to be refilled or recycled… yes, actually recycled.

Food containers

If you’ve tried beeswax and given up on sustainability, we hear you. Beeswax looks pretty and wraps up cheese OK, but it doesn’t stick like clingfilm and you can’t see through it: so, hello epic food waste.

At Green Salon, we’ve been perfecting the art of sustainable food storage and, honestly, the only way is glass. It’s see-through, doesn’t contain any nasty BPA like plastic, you can get Kilner’s microwaveable, freezer-proof and oven-proof glass, it lasts for ever (unless you throw it at the wall in a fit of pique) and it’s infinitely recyclable. What’s not to love? Another easy swap is getting your pantry staples delivered to you via Good Club’s* reusable and refillable tubs.

Once you’ve signed up with smol* you’ll never need to worry about running out of tablets again

Dishwasher capsules

Vegan, cruelty-free and planet-friendly, smol* dishwasher tablets are a fairly-priced alternative to the dishwasher tablets you get in the supermarkets. But they use far fewer synthetic chemicals to produce a sparkle on your dishes.

What we also love is that like Bower Collective*, they are a subscription service. Once you’ve worked out how regularly you need new ones, they arrive through your letterbox whenever you need a top up as if by magic.

Kitchen rolls

It’s hard to avoid the bin with paper kitchen towels so step forward reusable kitchen roll. We love Cheeky Panda’s natural bamboo kitchen towels* that are free from fragrance, pesticides, chlorine bleach, and BPA (bisphenol A).

Bamboo is so sustainable because it’s the fastest growing plant in the world, releasing 35% more oxygen and absorbing 30% more carbon than regular trees. On top of that, the bamboo they use is not the kind that pandas eat… so its a win-win! 

We also love Marley’s Monsters unpaper towels. Made from 100% cotton flannel, they’re soft, absorbent, and when they’re dirty, you can pop it in the washing machine. Also they’ve got some super pretty styles to choose from.

black+blum’s water charcoal filters are the latest must have water filter

Charcoal water filter

Why not replace your plastic water filter with a black+blum’s charcoal one? Why? Because activated charcoal adds key minerals, like iron, magnesium and calcium, back into the water whilst also removing toxins.

It’s a simple way to filter your water – not only does it use less plastic, but you can also see for yourself the magic of natural solutions, that are also loads cheaper. Just how bad plastic is anyway? Well, that’s for another journal post that we already wrote for you a few months ago.

We analyse each brand for their commitment to sustainability but we are not a certification body, nor are we auditors, and we have taken the approach that we trust brands to tell the truth about their sustainability policies, practices and plans.

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