Zero Waste Kitchen

1. Shop your local farmers markets, fruit vendors for packaging free grocery shopping (Your veggies will also most likely be free of plastic and stickers.) and carry reusable bags with you.
2. Take the egg carton back for reuse for wherever you get your eggs from.
3. Choose milk in returnable glass bottles or make your own coconut milk, almond milk. soy milk.
4. Welcome alternatives to disposables (paper towels, garbage liners, wax paper, aluminum sheets, disposable plates, cups, etc): Swap paper towels for reusable rags, swap sandwich baggies for kitchen towels or stainless containers, drop garbage liners all together (wet waste is mostly compostable anyways).
5. Buy in bulk or at the counter, bring reusable bags (dry goods), jars (wet items such as meat, deli, fish, cheese, oil, peanut butter). Support local entrepreneurs and buy jams and nut butters goods sold in glass jars.
6. If you cannot find it in bulk, find a supplier (Buy fresh bread and take a pillowcase to wrap the bread)
7. DIY: Do it yourself make salad dressing, hot sauce, jams, juices, hummus, cookies, canned tomatoes.
8. Say no to water that comes in plastic bottles! Invest in a water filter - it will last you a lifetime! 
9. Choose ice cream cones instead of plastic containers or take your own containers.
10. Use dish washing powder that is not harmful to your heath and does not pollute the ground water! If possible use a compostable cleaning brush (a wooden one with natural hair). Purchase dishwasher detergent in bulk. (Try our Bare Necessities one made from reetha/soapnuts)
11. Compost food waste!  (in clay pots made by local artists - Get your self a daily dump compost bin if you live in Bangalore)
12. Reinvent your leftovers before they go bad. Go thru your recipe binder/box and only keep the recipes that can be achieved with zero waste in mind.
13. Invest in a pressure cooker (halves the cooking time).
14. YOU CAN ALSO… Reuse single-side printed paper for grocery shopping and errands list, use your lettuce cleaning water to water plants, open your oven after baking in the winter (cool your oven, warm your house)
15. Use natural cleaning cloths and scrubbers instead of plastic scrubbers and synthetic sponges (coconut fibre)
16. Make your own dishwasher (borax, baking soda, washing soda and vinegar or tamarind and rock salt) and laundry detergent or buy ones that come in cardboard boxes
17. Steel and Copper vessels instead of non-stick utensils

Illustration by Noorain Ahmed

(Sharing the post and illustration for education and awareness is encouraged, however not without attributing credit to barenecessities.in and the illustrator Noorain Ahmed)