Interior Kitchen Design

Greening your kitchen - Part 1

Interior kitchen design can enhance the atmosphere and appeal of being in your kitchen through aesthetic and practical design solutions. The kitchen is the centre of your home, where the most activity goes on and where you and your family find themselves.

From an eco interior kitchen design perspective, your kitchen consumes more resources than any other room in your home. Whether through water, electricity or gas usage or throwing away products and packaging that cannot be recycled. Or through the use of appliances, materials, furniture, dining ware and cooking equipment. The kitchen's ecological footprint is the largest in your home.

So when it comes to designing and buying a new kitchen, where do you start and how does this fit into the greener lifestyle?

If you would like to read up on eco materials - visit my materials resources area where you can find detailed analysis of eco material credentials. Or if you are keen to explore the carbon footprint of your kitchen use the following link to read about kitchen appliances and energy savings.

Kitchen cupboards / units

Conventional kitchen units would be made from a combination of MDF, MFC, solid timber, veneered timber, laminates, chemical glues, varnishes, sealants and paints. These cupboards are made from synthetic materials which contain toxic and chemical additives or are made from timber products which are from unsustainable forests. So you can choose the lesser of two evils; a chemically processed kitchen unit which creates indoor air pollution and damages your health, wellbeing and the environment or a kitchen unit which is made from timber in a recently destroyed forest which over a longer time will affect your health, wellbeing through destruction of the natural environment. Oh and that is not to mention embodied energy in regards to overseas transportation and distribution. Surely there are alternatives………

As a number one rule, don’t replace anything that cannot be restored, repaired or renovated. Eco interior kitchen design looks at trying to limit the amount of new products you buy. Check your kitchen units to see if the worktops, handles, hinges, carcases, shelves, door or drawer fronts can be reused, so that you only have to replace what is necessary. If you simply must replace some of your kitchen units, then try and locate second hand units that would be bound for waste in landfill sites otherwise. There are a number of free recycling websites which help bring together recycling communities.

For some examples of Irish and UK recycling websites please visit my recycling webpage.

Look for kitchen doors/units which are available in these eco options

Timber

A natural, renewable, biodegradable and recyclable material which adds warmth to any kitchen. There are lots of eco timber choices available for your kitchen units, all with different levels of ecological footprints. The most important point to mention for timber is that the forests must be sustainably managed so that felled timber is replenished and not destroyed.

Look for these eco timber choices:

Second-hand, reclaimed or antique timber (using recycled raw materials or salvaged kitchen units help reduce the amount of waste put into landfill sites)
Locally produced timber (reduces transportation costs – check if the forest is managed sustainably)
Imported sustainable timber (the further a field the timber source the higher the levels of embodied energy)
Wood veneers / reconstituted veneers (veneers are more environmentally friendly than solid timber as they use a fraction of the amount of timber material compared to solid wood. This is especially important if you specify exotic woods from overseas).

Timber substitutes

Lyptus wood, wheat/straw board, kirei board, engineered laminated bamboo, 100% pre-consumer recycled particleboard, formaldehyde free medium density fibreboard (MDF)

Recycled content

100% post consumer and manufacturing waste plastic (e.g. yogurt pots, plastic cups, plastic bottles)

Opt for units produced with soya or vegetable based resins and water based / non toxic finishes rather than those that traditionally contain formaldehyde.