Sustainable Living in the Kitchen

“WE DON’T NEED A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE DOING ZERO WASTE PERFECTLY. WE NEED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DOING IT IMPERFECTLY.” ~ANNE MARIE BONNEAU

WWW.JENMILNES.COM About me

• Grew up in Madison, NJ • Studied Organizational Change • Moved to San Francisco to work in corporate retail focused on inventory strategy and operations • Moved to Summit 4 years ago • After burnout, took time to figure out next step – slowed down • Now a Leadership Coach helping driven women increase their career fulfillment by connecting to authentic inner leader and making bold choices. • Educate community on living a more eco-friendly lifestyle Family. Community. Impact.

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 2 Sustainable Living

There are many areas of our lives to examine which each have their own opportunities for upgrading to more sustainable options:

• Kitchen • Packing Lunches • On the Go • Laundry and Bathroom • Cleaners • Conscious Consumerism • Fashion

What’s your motivation? What one change can you make this month? What support structures can you set in place to help?

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 3 What is Sustainable Living?

What does “sustainable” or “zero waste living” mean? • It means to send less (or nothing) to the landfill. Use zero waste as the goal but be gentle on ourselves that minimizing waste is the realistic short term goal. • We can create less garbage by choosing reusable products that have a full lifecycle plan (i.e. reusable or compostable) instead of single-use items that we temporarily use and then throw away. • There are lots of options to swap current habits or products to more eco-friendly and less waste producing options.

NOTE: “It’s only a straw”, said 8 billion people. While you may doubt your own impact, know that you influence those around you.

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 4 Why minimize our waste?

Environment Health Finances

• Reduce climate change • Food supply impacted by • Avoid spending money on impact (extreme weather droughts or extreme products that get thrown patterns, rising sea levels weather away. towel example: due to increasing • Diseases spread more temperatures, wildlife easily with warmer habitat impact) temperatures (ex. $15 x 6 • Conserve resources & save Mosquitoes spreading = $90 energy used to make new Zika virus) materials (cans, plastic • Microplastics found in , paper products) water we drink and food • Reduce waste going to we eat $14 x 1 landfill, decrease needs for = $14 future landfills

https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/our-planet-is-warming-here-s-what-s-at-stake-if-we-don-t-act-now WWW.JENMILNES.COM 5 https://www.solo.com.au/latest-news/why-its-so-important-to-reduce-waste/ will not save us

Many people believe recycling is the answer to helping the environment but we can do even more before items get to the point of recycling. The old 3 R’s of “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” have expanded.

What does refusing look like? • Refuse plastic grocery bags – bring your own to the store. Or if it’s small, carry the item. • Refuse extra utensils with takeout food if eating at home. Use your voice.

Preparation is key!

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What are you already doing today to minimize waste in the kitchen?

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 7 THE KITCHEN

Living a sustainable lifestyle starts in the kitchen as we produce lots of garbage related to eating. There are several areas to focus on in the kitchen:

• Minimizing waste 1. Meal Planning 2. Grocery Shopping 3. Storage 4. Linens

• Making the most of what you’ve got 1. Storing food 2. Food usage

• Proper disposal 1. Reuse 2. Recycle 3. Compost

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 8 Minimizing Waste: Meal Planning

• Make a plan for the week – involve kids • Shop for groceries from your meal plan list to avoid buying extras/impulse foods that won’t get eaten.

NOTE: “Up to 40 percent of the food in the United States is never eaten…40% of that is from residential homes.” ~NRDC

https://www.nrdc.org/media/2017/170215 WWW.JENMILNES.COM 9 Minimizing Waste: Grocery Shopping

• Shop at local farmer’s markets or participate in a CSA with a local farm • Buy naked foods – avoid buying plastic wrapped foods • Bring your own produce bags to put produce in • Avoid items packaged in smaller bundles • Buy in bulk using your own • Bring your own reusable shopping bags Cotton produce

Unnecessary

Bulk bins (if/when available)

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 10 Minimizing Waste: Storage

Instead of using plastic wrap to store food, consider these alternatives:

Glass containers

Plastic wrap or Ziploc bags on food – used once and thrown away Beeswax Wraps Stasher bag

NOTE: Plastics contain chemicals that are bad for our health due to endocrine disruptors so we don’t want them close to our food or items we eat off of. 1,2

1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/youre-literally-eating-microplastics-how-you-can-cut-down-exposure-to-them/2019/10/04/22ebdfb6- e17a-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html WWW.JENMILNES.COM 11 2: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/04/25/peds.2011-0523 Minimizing Waste: Linens

Linens

Paper napkins Linen napkins (helpful to have different sizes)

Paper towels Bar towels, upcycled fabrics, “unpaper towel” Support structure: Place a bucket nearby in the kitchen for dirty napkins and unpaper towels (and masks).

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 12 Maximizing Food: Storage

The way you store food can make it last much longer minimizing the potential to waste and increasing the chance to save money.

Be mindful of ethylene producing fruit (apples) vs ethylene sensitive foods (bananas) Carrots can last up to a month if stored this way https://www.culinarynutrition.com/how-to-best-store-produce-and-save-money-in-the-process/ https://www.thekitchn.com/food-science-ethylene-gas-130275 WWW.JENMILNES.COM 13 Maximizing Food: Usage

First in, first out Use food scraps for other things

Add vegetable scraps and chicken carcass to create a delicious chicken broth. shelves or food to guide Freeze food that’s almost going bad to family what needs to be eaten first use in smoothies (ex. Bananas).

https://foodprint.org/blog/zero-waste-cooking/ WWW.JENMILNES.COM 14 Disposal: Reuse

Consider what could each item be used for. Less than 9% of what can be recycled, gets recycled.

Plastic from school lunch washed out and now part of the toy kitchen props.

Other plastic containers can be used to store art supplies or Legos (or sidewalk chalk)

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 15 Disposal: Recycle

Recycle Plastics 1, 2, and 5 Donate Milk, juices, raisins, carrots, apples, cereal, crackers can all be donated to Grace’s Pantry if not eaten

Apple sauce can be recycled but juice is plastic #6 and can’t be recycled

Recycle stretched plastics Follow instructions sent out this month – Trex program

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 16 Disposal: Compost

About 1/3 of your garbage can be composted. Food in garbage bags adds to the incinerator amount (or landfill depending on town where it emits greenhouse gases.)

Backyard Paid Service

Compost bin in kitchen and tumbler outside Weekly/bi-weekly pickup service

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 17 THE KITCHEN

What one thing will you try changing during the next month?  Food usage – meal planning to  Linens – washable napkins minimize waste  Linens – washable papertowel  Grocery shopping – buy naked alternative  Grocery shopping – bring own  Strategic about how to store food produce and shopping bags to maximize its life  Grocery shopping – bring  Eat food before it goes bad reusable containers to buy bulk  Use scraps of food for other  Storage – Reusable mason purposes / containers  Reuse plastic containers creatively  Storage – Plastic wrap  Recycle as much as possible alternative  Compost  Storage – Ziploc bag alternative

What’s your “why”? What support structures will help you?

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 18 Pandemic Activities

Some environmentally focused activities to do with your kid: • Garbage assessment – spread garbage bag contents out and examine what you are primarily throwing away • Neighborhood cleanup – go for a family walk and pick up garbage to properly dispose of • Cook and bake meals together – homemade meals use less packaging

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 19 Contact Information

Join me for educational and inspirational posts on Instagram/Facebook @jen.milnes

Available for 1:1 Coaching, more information: www.jenmilnes.com

Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenmilnes/

WWW.JENMILNES.COM 20 Q&A

1. What trash bag would you recommend? 1. Discussion about eco-friendly garbage bags. Environmentalist perspective: https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/04/22/asked-eco-friendly-garbage-bags/ and then more guidance on the actual bags: https://greenily.co/2018/10/24/ecofriendlytrashbagoptions/ 2. Plant based or recycled plastic options: https://www.hipposak.com/trash-bags/

2. What dog poop bag would you recommend? I haven’t personally tested since I don’t have a dog but here are what two trusted sources choose: 1. Earth Rated https://earthrated.com/en/products/ 2. Cycle Dog https://packagefreeshop.com/collections/pets/products/pick-up-bags-6-rolls

3. Can the plastic wrap around paper towels and toilet paper be recycled? Yes, include it in the stretched plastics recycling through Trex (Washington School Girl Scout troop currently tracking. See other school announcement for more details.)

4. Are the bags at the grocery store different from the stretchy plastic on paper towels, etc? Stretched plastics can be either high-density (HDPE) or low-density polyethylene (LDPE) so there is a difference between types of stretched plastics. Some grocery stores only take grocery store plastic bags (ex. Shop Rite). Other stores accept a larger amount of stretched plastics. For example, the Whole Foods (Vauxhall) partners with the Trex program and accepts these types of clean and dry stretched plastics: grocery bags, bread bags, overwrap, dry cleaning bags, newspaper sleeves, ice bags, Ziploc baggies, produce bags, , salt and cereal bags.

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