7 Best Tips for Making Your Office Kitchen Space Eco-Friendly

This article was guest written by Jean Deruiter.

Being eco-friendly does not end with yourself at home. The way you dress, eat, shop, and travel has an impact on the environment. You can also be eco-friendly when improving your home.

The same thing goes when you are in the office. Going paperless as much as possible and bringing your own food are just some of the ways to achieve a sustainable workplace.

But what if we tell you that you can extend that to the office pantry?

Whether at home or in the office, the kitchen is often where you can find the most waste. Hence, it only makes sense to start your zero-waste journey in the office kitchen. Here are some tips for making your office kitchen space eco-friendly.

Keep it Clean and Organized

The first step to having an eco-friendly office kitchen is to maintain its cleanliness.

As mentioned earlier, we often produce the most waste in the kitchen. We are talking about trash, leftovers, and electricity, and water consumption.

Meanwhile, a clean pantry means that there is less waste produced. And this could mean that you are sending less trash to the landfill.

Thus, Maid Sailors Office Cleaning Services Austin recommends that you start with decluttering the pantry. Identify which kitchen items should stay and go before you schedule a deep cleaning session. From there, you can develop office policies for maintaining the pantry’s cleanliness and encouraging everyone to join in your sustainability efforts.

Use Green Cleaning Solutions

While cleaning your office kitchen is one of the first steps to be eco-friendly, you can take it up a notch by using green cleaning solutions.

Here’s the thing: A clean kitchen reflects the kind of business that you have. However, the cleaning solutions we use are filled with toxic chemicals. This explains why it would be ideal to use natural cleaners to have an eco-friendly office kitchen.

The best part? You can make these alternative cleaning solutions at home. All you need is to google “DIY home cleaning solutions.”

If you hire professional office cleaners, though, you can ask if they provide green cleaning services.

Use Water-efficient Faucet

While decluttering, you should identify which items in the office pantry need replacing. One of which is the kitchen faucet.

From an individual perspective, you may think that you are not consuming that much water to wash your cutleries. But for an office that houses 20 employees, that would be a lot.

Hence, consider replacing your office kitchen faucet with a water-efficient one. There are some cheap fixtures that you can attach to your faucet to reduce its flow rate.

You can also opt to replace the faucet with a high-efficiency aerator that can help you save gallons of water.

Go for Energy-efficient Appliances

In relation to the previous point, you might also want to replace your kitchen appliances in the office with something energy efficient. This can be your fridge, microwave oven, and coffee maker.

For one, energy-efficient appliances help you save money by reducing energy bills. Second, it helps reduce your office’s carbon footprint. That’s because you are consuming less electricity. And we know how electric consumption can lead to greenhouse gas emissions.

Meanwhile, energy-efficient appliances let you consume less electricity. Hence, you are producing fewer greenhouse gasses.

Always Clean the Fridge

Speaking of energy-efficient appliances, cleaning the office fridge regularly is one of the excellent ways to maximize it.

In case you are unaware, a cramped fridge with coils caked with frost restricts airflow, can affect the amount of energy that an appliance needs to consume to maintain a specific temperature.

Thus, defrosting the fridge and cleaning it can help make the appliance last long. It also ensures that the refrigerator will not drain your budget due to poor maintenance.

Have Your Own Plates and Cutleries

Often, employees order take-out food or opt for deliveries for lunch. What they do not know is that it produces a hefty carbon footprint.

That’s because take-out food undergoes a long-life cycle, from sourcing and prepping to packaging and selling.

As such, encourage your employees to cook their own food and wash their dishes in the pantry instead. That way, they are reducing their carbon footprint and producing less waste.

If you have the resources, consider tapping an office catering business to supply food for your employees. This will enable them to always have healthy, locally sourced, and homemade food without incurring more waste. Doing so will also encourage them to use office plates and cutleries instead of using disposable ones.

Add Indoor Plants

If your kitchen is lucky to have natural sunlight, consider bringing indoor plants in the office pantry. Otherwise, you can have plants that do not require sunlight.

But what makes indoor plants eco-friendly? Simple! The plants take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Thus, indoor plants are believed to remove air toxins and purify the air.

But keep in mind that the amount of CO2 that a plant can absorb will depend on various factors. This includes:

The type of indoor plant you have
Number of indoor plants in a space
How light the room is
How hydrated the soil is

Nonetheless, an indoor plant can breathe a new life into a rather dull-looking space.

Start Saving the Planet!

There is no one perfect way to reduce waste and achieve sustainability. Every action we take, no matter how small, counts.

That said, the keys to having an eco-friendly office kitchen are:

Reduce energy and water consumption
Reduce waste of any kind

When you keep these two things in mind, it will be easier to follow the tips listed above.