6 Ways to Create Less Waste in Your Kitchen • The Rose-Tinted Globe

With my thirtieth birthday right around the corner, I’m finding myself a bit ~~obsessed,~~ er preoccupied, with the number thirty. In addition to the 30 goals I set for myself before the big birthday, reducing my waste has been one of the most important things I’ve worked on this year. So, in honor of 30, I thought I’d share 30 (mostly) easy ways to reduce your waste and stop creating so much garbage that is actually expensive, unnecessary, and bad for the planet.

Because 30 changes is A LOT to make at once, and reducing waste can already seem pretty hopeless, I’ve split these 30 things into 5 different categories, making one potentially crazy long post a more manageable series. This is Part 3: Ways to Create Less Waste in Your Kitchen!

Find Part 1: Ways to Create Less Waste with your Skincare Routine HERE and Part 2: Ways to Waste Less and Still Go Out to Eat HERE.

Links on this page may be affiliate links (I receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you click on the link and make a purchase). I only recommend products I’ve used and love.

1. Ditch paper towels and use cloth instead.

If you’ve read either of the earlier posts in this series, you know that one of my favorite places to get eco-friendly goods is Marley’s Monsters. (Marley’s Monsters is a Eugene, Oregon based small business and if it’s possible to have a crush on a business, then I have a crush on this business. They make a huge variety of sustainable and eco-friendly items and I think I own almost all of them.)

I’ve also mentioned before that I especially love them because you can choose your favorite prints to customize the items you buy, which is why I have a ridiculous amount of sustainable cactus print items in my home now. What this means for you is that the products I’m recommending for your low-waste kitchen can also totally match or color-coordinate with your kitchen! Cool, right?

For your kitchen, some of their best products are UNpaper Towels. These are flannel cloths that you can roll up just like a roll of paper towels. They come in packs or you can even get them pre-rolled on a wooden paper towel holder! They are super easy to wash and dry and even get softer the more you wash and reuse them.

Bonus: they also make a cloth wipe size of these that is perfect for a kleenex substitute. I keep some in my purse at all times.

Norwex is another company that I love for low-waste goods, and we use their Counter Cloths all the time. They are another great paper towel swap and look so cute on your counter, table, or ledge in their little house. 🙂

2. Plastic baggies are bullshit, switch to reusable.

I don’t curse a lot while writing, but plastic baggies are a huge target of my hatred and my potty mouth right now. The majority of plastic baggies are used for only a few hours before they are dumped into the garbage can and then eventually into a landfill. There are so many different containers that aren’t single-use to put your snacks in; I beg you to consider something reusable.

Personally, I think reusable baggies are one billion times cuter, they will save you money in the long run, and they don’t make you look like an asshole to the planet.

Again, a waste-less hack that ends up saving you money! What could be better? As for my favorites, Bumkins makes some adorable ones that will make all of your work friends jealous when you pull out your lunch. You can get bags that have a liner that are perfect for fruits and vegetables or bags without that are great for pretty much everything else. We totally have these cute bird print ones and possibly also like six other prints.

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We also have quite a few of the Planet Wise bags and they have held up awesome being used frequently and in our washer and dryer. I love that they’re Wisconsin-based (like me) and they have SUCH cute prints! I also love that both of these brands have zipper closures. I’ve tried fold-over types and they are not my preference: it’s too easy to dump out the contents and it’s too difficult to turn them inside out efficiently to be washed.

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3. Wash and reuse your kitchen sponges.

Traditional kitchen sponges are not only wasteful, they tend to harbor a ton of disgusting bacteria in them. Wouldn’t it be better if you could machine wash your sponge, know it was clean, and keep using it? It’s not just a dream, my friends!

Conveniently, Marley’s Monsters allows you to pick a pattern to match the paper towels you just bought based on my recommendation above! (Nudge, nudge.) Their reusable sponges have a scrubbier mesh side and a softer terry cloth side, and you can customize the colors used on each.

Norwex also makes an excellent sponge (the Envirosponge) that is actually my favorite. These come in a pack of two and will last you pretty much forever. If you aren’t familiar with Norwex, the majority of their cloths and cloth items have a special BacLock material that is self-purifying, so you are guaranteed that your sponge stays fresh between washings. If this sounds like magic, it’s not, it’s actually science. 🙂

4 & 5. Out with plastic wrap, in with reusable covers.

I’ve got two different and equally great ways to ditch your plastic wrap here:

Again, Marley’s Monsters has got you covered with their bowl covers. If I haven’t convinced you to check out their website yet, then this is where you absolutely MUST go there now. These are perhaps my most-used eco-swap. They work amazing and are so easy to wash and dry. Throwing one of these covers over a bowl or plate is much easier than transferring leftovers to a separate container and much nicer than using plastic wrap.

Now, beeswax wrap is one swap that I think had a definite learning curve. I actually didn’t love my beeswax wrap at first and used it rarely the first few months I had it. However, I’ve found that the more you wash and reuse it, the easier it is to use. It gets softer and more pliable once you’ve had it out of the package for a bit. A pro-tip here: it sticks better if you fold it on itself rather than trying to just stick it to your bowl or plate. I also find it works best on cut fruits or vegetables, and especially on onions. I got mine from Package Free Shop, but a lot of stores are carrying these now.

6. Start composting food waste

I wrote a post when we first started composting HERE. Now that we’ve been doing it consistently for a few months, it’s been so much easier than I imagined!

We keep a small jar on our counter that we empty as it gets full (which is also so much more often than I would have thought) and then just dump it into our fancy drilled rubbermaid tub in our backyard.

I used to think composting was only for farms or people with huge yards, but we live on a tiny city lot and have found it super easy to do. There are a practically a billion ways to compost, and it can be as easy and low-key or as fancy as you want.

Here are some things we compost every week: coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable scraps, parchment paper, junk mail (with the plastic windows removed), and other miscellaneous paper and food waste.