How to Prioritize Greener Choices in Your Home

Focus on where it counts and worry less about the rest!

Once you start learning about the questionable chemicals and ingredients in everyday household items and food, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed (me) and like you need to replace every single item in your home immediately (also me). But practically speaking, it’d be incredibly costly and environmentally harmful to take everything to the curb. Replacing everything at once is out of bounds for most of us (myself included) so if you’re looking for a framework, I’ll share my own approach to deciding what to prioritize and how.

Things that directly touch our food and drinks

If our food is touching it, I want to make sure I’m using safe materials - to me that means using little to no plastic and chemically-treated materials (i.e. nonstick pans) and instead using glass, wood, and silicone. A few places this comes to light most in our kitchen:

• glass food storage containers

• wooden cutting boards

• wood, silicone, and stainless steel cooking utensils

• stainless steel and cast iron pots + pans

• baby/kids eating accessories: utensils, bowls + plates, cups, and bottles

  • incl. the only entirely plastic free kids water bottle I’ve found!

• silicone food storage bags and beeswax food wraps

Where I’m making exceptions (not exhaustive):

• The biggest elephant in the room kitchen is the prepackaged food we buy from the grocery store because of, well, convenience. This includes some prepackaged produce (e.g. berries from the grocery store), prepackaged greens, yogurt/applesauce pouches for the kids and more. We are just not at a place in our lives right now where we can source all produce from the farmer’s market every week or meal prep a week’s worth of snacks for our kids. We try and buy loose produce and cook at home as much as possible, but rely on prepackaged food a lot of the time. And that’s okay for us right now!!

• While I shudder to think about hot liquids touching plastic, I frequently drink coffee out of a Yeti mug w/ plastic lid when commuting to the office because as much as I love this travel ceramic mug as an alternative, I’ve already cracked it in my work bag!:(

• We have a couple of specialty appliances (rice cooker, waffle maker) that are nonstick but because we don’t touch the surface like we would with a frying pan and they’re both in really good shape, I’m comfortable cooking on them for now

• My own water bottle because I’m obsessed with Owalas and haven’t been able to find a plastic-free option. taking any recs!!

Things that come in prolonged contact with our skin

I try and scrutinize everything in our home that we are snuggling up with regularly or directly applying to our bodies. This includes categories like bedding, clothing, rugs, skincare/cosmetics, and everyday household cleaners. Some choices I’ve prioritized in our home include:

• wool comforters, pillows, and sleepsacks for the kids. I really love the brand Woolino for all three!

• 100% organic cotton preschool bedding

• 100% cotton bedsheets for the family

• organic cotton pajamas for the kids

• Branch Basics and Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds for everyday cleaning

• Nellie’s laundry soda as laundry detergent

• EWG rated bath & body products for the kids

• rugs made from 100% wool, cotton, jute or a combo

Where I’m making exceptions (non-exhaustive):

This category is obviously much more broad than food/eating which means there are many more exceptions - far too many to list. Here are a few conscious exceptions we’ve made:

• Foam pillows for K and I - before meeting K, I’d slept on a down-filled pillow for my entire life. He introduced me to “square pillows” (foam pillows that are actually rectangular) and now I can’t go back. I’ve since learned that foam products can have issues with off-gassing, which is the release of volatile organic compounds or VOCs, particularly when the products are new. We’ve had these pillows for several years now so I imagine we’ve already experienced all the off-gassing they will do. When they wear out eventually, maybe we’ll reconsider a different kind:)

• Our kitchen rug - while I’ve prioritized rugs made from exclusively natural materials in the rest of the house (always scrutinize the material list btw!), we purchased a jute-looking Ruggable for the kitchen a few years back and I honestly don’t know what we’d do without it. Our rug is spilled on daily and being able to throw it in the wash has been a lifesaver. I’d love to replace it one day with a natural rug, but it’s not happening yet.

• Gifted and hand-me-down clothing for S&P - these days, if I’m shopping for the kids I try and buy only only natural materials (like 100% cotton or wool). But our kids are fortunate to have lots of family members and friends who gift them clothes that don’t always adhere to those principles. I’m OK with making occasional exceptions right now given the quick turnover of kids clothes and focus on prioritizing sleepwear the most.

Opportunistic swaps and upgrades

I just listed a number of intentional choices we’ve made in our home that feel safer to us as well as intentional choices we’ve made for the time being that go against these principles. Some of these choices were made all at once (like ditching our nonstick pans and transitioning to stainless or cast iron cookware only), but most of these were made gradually over time.

If you have items in your home today that are brand new or still in good working order, you might consider swapping them when you run out or the item exhausts its useful life. For example, if you’ve always used traditional laundry detergent and it’s working fine for you, you could finish up your current bottle and then look to try a milder/fragrance-free alternative next time.

Another great time to replace something is during a gifting season - no shame in putting cooking utensils on your wishlist! If the items you’re replacing are still usable, you can donate them to a local charity, post on your local Buy Nothing group, or even sell them.

Finally, there are ways to get creative. I was chatting with a friend this weekend about sourcing the “big kid bed” setup and we were lamenting how expensive some of these natural/organic mattresses are - especially when you can imagine the number of times your little one will probably throw up and have an accident on it. Their solve was to buy an Ikea mattress, wrap it in a waterproof mattress cover, and put an organic mattress topper on it. I thought this was kind of genius??

Closing thoughts

There is no right way to go about ridding your home of harmful chemicals and materials and only you can decide what those items are and what makes you feel most comfortable to replace vs. keep. If you’re like me (and probably most people), you are going to have to make trade-offs. Our home is far from perfect, but when I look around now vs. a few years ago, I can see how far we’ve come and I’m proud of the progress we’ve made! Little green steps over time make a big difference :)

What are some of the categories and things you’ve prioritized ‘cleaning up’ in your home? Let me know in the comments!

<3 A