Green Kitchen Design Lighting

They’re one of the largest rooms in the home, taking up the most energy. The materials we use to remodel them are not only expensive, but also wasteful, high-maintenance, and inefficient. Most of the appliances installed in this space draw a lot of energy, so naturally it is the most expensive room in your home and a great place to start in reducing your electricity usage.. Of course you don’t want to sacrifice your comfortable environment with the appliances and lighting that you rely on to function everyday. This is why green kitchen design has become such a popular trend: it increases environmental efficiency without sacrificing luxury.

Low energy light bulbs save money and protect the environment from the ravages of excessive energy consumption. Choosing a more energy efficient lighting option means spending less money, a longer bulb life span and less impact on the earth. These days low energy light bulbs come in a variety of shapes and wattages. Quality does make a difference when it comes to choosing low energy light bulbs.

 Large retailers have already started taking older high energy output bulbs off the counter. Conventional 100-watt bulbs, the most popular size, will be banned from in most retail outlets. along with frosted 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs, and followed by most others before 2012. There are also more unusual conditions where people are completely light-sensitive. Try to find bulbs that closely match the performance of your current lighting so that you won’t feel that the quality of your life is compromised.

Low energy light bulbs can help us to use less electricity and place less strain on the environment from the impact of the human race. With the current understanding of the impact that global warming is likely to have on all of us in the not too distant future it may be worth making the switch to a more efficient lighting option

Green Kitchen Tips That Don’t Cost A Lot

Let’s face it, having a green kitchen can be expensive. Buying all new energy-efficient appliances and making sure your cabinets, flooring and countertops are eco-friendly can have a huge impact on your wallet.

But what if you want to do some eco-friendly things in the kitchen and don’t have a lot of money to spend?  Here are three things that you can do today that won’t cost you a lot, but will go a long way towards conserving energy and helping the environment.

1.  When Cleaning

A green kitchen isn’t just about the items that you put it, it’s also about the resources that you use while you’re going about your daily activities of cooking and cleaning.  One way you can reduce the resources to use is by buying a low flow kitchen faucet that will reduce the amount of water you use during all of your kitchen tasks.  You can choose from ones that have metered valve’s, once with automatic shutoff and ones that have a sensor that know when something is under an and can turn the water on and then off again when nothing is under it.

2.    When Cooking

Most people do a lot of cooking in the kitchen and cooking uses either electricity or gas depending on the type of stove you have.  You can reduce the amount of energy needed to cook anything by buying waterless cookware.  This is cookware that is specifically designed to not use water for cooking and, therefore, the food cooks much faster, thus using less resources to cook it.

3.    When Washing

Most modern homes today have a dishwasher, but these handy appliances can use a lot of energy to produce those squeaky clean dishes.  One thing you can do to save resources and the dishwasher is to turn down the temperature. Most people think it should be as hot as possible, but 120°F is all you need to sanitize your dishes.

While these might not seem like big things, every little step towards having a green kitchen helps reduce your carbon footprint and it all adds up to a healthier environment.

Greener Cleaners

Now that you’ve put a lot of effort into your green kitchen design, you don’t want to fill it up with harmful toxic cleaners, do you? Unfortunately, many traditional cleaners are made from petroleum based products and as we all know petroleum is not a renewable resource. Not only that but it’s harmful to the environment into your health.  So how can you find Greener cleaners for your kitchen?

One thing you can do is go natural. Some of the best cleaners are probably in your cupboards right now and these include vinegar and baking soda.  Mix in either one of these with water will give you a wonderful and natural cleaner and baking soda is a great deodorizer or for the home you can toss out those toxic plug-ins and just use baking soda.

But for those of you that like to have your cleaners come premade, there are actually quite a few choices today and as the demand for green cleaning products grows, there will be many more and the future.

One green cleaning products that’s been around for generations is Bon Ami, this widely recognizable product comes in a cylindrical container and is simply calcium carbonate.  It’s biodegradable and contains no toxic ingredients like perfumes or dyes.  Another cleaner you might be familiar with his Borax.  The unlikely name makes it sound like it’s filled with chemicals however it has just one ingredient sodium tetraborate decahydrate which is safe to use and does not contain chlorine or phosphates.

One of the “newer”products called Simple Green has actually been around for over 30 years. It comes in an easy-to-use spray bottle filled with green liquid.  The company actually has a huge range of environmental he finally cleaning products that can be used to clean just about anything.

If you take a trip through grocery store, you probably find a variety of green cleaning products on the shelves. Be sure to read the labels so you pick one that really is green and you be helping your family’s health as well as the environment.