8 Best Eco-Friendly Materials Your Kitchen Needs

Sustainable living has become a popular trend in recent years. While we’re glad sustainability is getting the attention it needs, we’re here to say it’s more than a temporary solution – it’s a lifestyle. 

Sure, you’ve likely been taught the famous phrase, “reduce, reuse, recycle” from the time you could count, but are you actually conscious about your role in the environment?

Sadly, the kitchen is one of the rooms in your house that holds key items notorious for increased levels of waste, carbon emissions, and plastic pollution. But, this can easily be fixed with simple swaps of your kitchen materials! 

In this guide, we’re reviewing the best eco-friendly materials to have on hand for a sustainable kitchen, and what makes a material eco-friendly so you know what to look for while shopping. 

Why Are Eco-Friendly Materials Important?

There are several major benefits to using eco-friendly materials in your kitchen. Not only do they impact the environment positively, but they impact you as well. 

Non-eco-friendly materials – like plastic – threaten nearly every aspect of life, starting from production. Harmful carbon emissions are transferred into the air we breathe during manufacturing that contributes to climate change and air pollution. Not to mention the drastic threat to aquatic life when tons of plastic is discarded into the oceans every year. 

Apart from this, plastic and other non-eco-friendly materials don’t break down properly, which means the discarded items stick around for several decades and release harmful toxins into the air while they decompose.

What threat does this have on human and animal health? For starters, plastic pollution threatens aquatic and land habitats by potentially choking the animals, injuring them, and littering their environments. For humans, it’s been discovered that plastic contributes to issues like infertility and even cancer. 

Thank goodness eco-friendly products can drastically improve these measures! How? Because eco-friendly materials do the following:

• Conserve natural resources

• Eliminate waste and pollution

• Reduce exposure to harmful chemicals and emissions

• Create a cleaner, healthier environment

• Decrease carbon footprints

• Improve personal health

What Makes a Material Eco-Friendly? 

So, what exactly makes a material eco-friendly? There are several properties to eco-friendly products that make them sustainable and ideal for green living, such as:

• Being biodegradable and recyclable

• Made from sustainable, renewable resources

• Being reusable

• Free from harmful chemicals or emissions

• Produced in a way that decreases carbon footprint

Other than knowing which products are eco-friendly based on materials alone, you can look for labels while shopping that indicate whether something has been or is recyclable, or has certification stickers on the packaging. 

8 Eco-Friendly Materials for Your Sustainable Kitchen

Ready to save the environment and your health? Here are the top 8 materials to use for an eco-friendly kitchen.

1. Bamboo

Bamboo is an excellent material to invest in if you’re trying to create an eco-friendly kitchen. Mostly because you have tons of options for how you want to incorporate the material into your cooking space. There’s bamboo cutlery to switch to from single-use plastic, bamboo kitchen utensils, cutting boards, and even storage organizers you can use in the cabinets. 

Bamboo items – especially those for kitchens – fit perfectly in sustainable kitchens since they’re biodegradable and environmentally-friendly when they’re growing. Growing bamboo doesn’t require the use of pesticides and the plants don’t require an overload of water to grow.

 2. Glass 

If you haven’t swapped your plastic food containers for ones made out of glass, now’s the time. Glass is one the best sustainable materials on the market for eco-friendly kitchenware since it’s completely recyclable. Whether it’s glass food containers, cups, or plates, it can be melted down and made into a brand new creation. What’s more, glass is also a non-toxic material that doesn’t break down into microplastics. So not only is it better for the environment, but glass is better for your health, too!

3. Astrik

A true way to make your kitchen eco-friendly is to swap traditional plastics for bio-derived plastics like Astrik. Astrik is a 100% biodegradable thermoplastic sourced from plant fiber known as PLA (Polylactic Acid). This material is better than traditional plastics since it breaks down faster and isn’t harmful for the environment. Plus, it’s completely durable. You can use Astrik kitchenware items daily, even toss them in the microwave or dishwasher, without worrying about their functionality.

4. Beeswax

Whether you’re packing for an outdoor picnic or covering a dish after dinner, ditch the traditional plastic wrap for beeswax wraps. These food wraps are made from a mix of biodegradable materials like cotton, beeswax, jojoba or coconut oil, and more. Plus, you can use your beeswax wraps as long as you properly maintain them. Maintained beeswax wraps can last up to a year before being tossed in a composting bin. 

5. Silicone

While silicone does have some environmental drawbacks from it not being biodegradable and producing carbon emissions during production, the material does have some benefits, mostly from it being reused. Silicone cooking utensils is a much better alternative to plastic since it cuts down on waste and has strong durability. It also doesn’t break down into microplastics, which is another plus when compared to plastic.  

6. Stainless Steel

If you’ve been on the hunt for eco-friendly cookware, look no further than stainless steel. This fan-favorite cookware material is great for green kitchens since it’s completely recyclable. The only downside is that the production process does contribute to harmful emissions being released in the air from the manufacturing process. 

But apart from the 100% recyclable material, stainless steel benefits your sustainable kitchen in several other ways. The first is the material’s exceptional durability. Because it’s a metal alloy made from iron, stainless steel cookware lasts for a crazy long time, making it a piece that’s around for the long haul. It’s also highly resistant to corrosion which means the cookware won’t break down as easily as other materials. 

7. Anything Reusable

The kitchen is one room of the home that sees a lot of daily waste. One of the best ways to make your kitchen a zero-waste space is to use as many reusable items as possible, like straws, dinnerware, containers, and more. Swapping to reusable items (made of eco-friendly materials, of course) is the best way to eliminate waste that comes from plastics that are invading our oceans and landfills. 

Create a Sustainable Kitchen Today!

Choosing to live sustainably doesn’t have to feel overwhelming if you’re new to the lifestyle. All it takes is being mindful of the materials you use and how you use them to make a difference in the world. 

You can get started with a sustainable kitchen today! We offer a range of eco-friendly kitchen products made from sustainable materials that complement your kitchen aesthetics. From biodegradable baking bundles to plant-based plastic countertop compost bins, we make it easy and affordable to live green so you can make the world a better, healthier place!