After sharing with you the Zero Waste starter pack that we published a few weeks ago, today we want to continue with some easy tips for a beautiful waste-free kitchen.
You will be surprised by how stylish can be your kitchen if you cut down all those plastic bags, bottles and packagings.
The beginning requires a small investment in purchasing the essential, but soon you will discover that those items will be the only things you are going to need.
1) REUSABLE SHOPPING BAGS.
Stop bringing single-use shopping bag is another great solution to keep plastic away from your kitchen. Keep your own reusable cloth bag always with you for any occasion. Add a complete set of shopping bags to use when you go for grocery, it will help you to keep it separate and tidy.
You can purchase different measures of organic cotton bags and also the reusable beeswax wrapping sheets (and many more organic products for your zero waste house) at the Bulk House and Baluchon.
2) REFILLABLE CLEANING PRODUCTS.
The market accustomed us to dozens of different chemical products for every room of the house, invading our cabinets in the kitchen, bathroom or a broom closet to store them all. What if instead, we have a generic cleaning product, made with organic and not harmful ingredients that you can even refillable? The Soap Republic offers a wide range of cleaning products, find them on WeChat (Wechat Handle: SoapnutRepublik) to discover all the categories. They ship all over China, however, if you live in Shanghai, you can also benefit from their refilling service, saving bottles and money!
3) JAR JAR JAR!
Purchasing products in bulks require containers to store and organize them at home. Glass jars are the best and also quite classy to see in your kitchen display. You can find thousands of shapes and varieties anywhere, Taobao offers numerous options if you need to buy a comprehensive collection.
But you can reuse jam or sauce containers (or any other product that comes packed in a jar) that you can buy at the supermarket.
These colorful and appealing containers often match the size we need...so it's a win-win to reuse something that either way we will throw away!
4) WATER BARREL.
Water in China is not drinkable directly from the sink. A water purifier is one solution, but pricey and not so automatic, it might require some additional work or extra space. Possibly the only alternative is that annoying plastic bottle. It's easy, convenient, and fast, no language burden either. Yet it is not the only solution! Some compounds offer an internal service that delivers barrels of water. If you don't live in one of those and you don't know who to ask for, or if you really are a Nongfu aficionado, you can consider downloading their app songshuidaofu 送水到付.
The app is entirely in Chinese, but that friend that helped you filling the address on Taobao maybe can help you also here.
Nongfu provides water dispenser too, in case you need it, however, online you can find options more suitable to your needs and space (pump, electrical, auto dispenser with hot/cold water option ). Here a brief guide for beginners.
5) COMPOST
One of the most environmental things you can do is separating your food ('wet') waste from your 'dry' waste (paper, metal, cardboard, ...). By separating the food waste you:
1. Reduce the landfill waste (up to 40%)
2. More dry waste will be recycled: Wet waste mixed with dry waste contaminates the dry waste and makes it more difficult to recycle. If you pour oily food on a plastic bottle, the plastic bottle can't be recycled.
3. You allow food to close the loop and go back to the earth through composting.
Having a compost bin in your home is really easy and should be hassle free. You can get one on taobao, or if you want to know more about the concept and ask your questions, you can come to one of our compost bin workshops!
We organise them monthly and if the dates don't match yours, you can organise one at your convenience with your friends!
Let us know through the contact page if you'd like to organise one or
Follow us on Wechat to stay updated on upcoming workshops!
