Eco-kitchen: earth-friendly tips for your home

Lori Tobias

Lisa Pickett spent 2 1/2, years looking for the perfect kitchen cabinets. When the cabinets arrived at her favorite building store, she had mere minutes to make a decision or risk losing them to another shopper. She quickly said yes, hauled her new kitchen furnishings home, then stored them in her dining room while she spent another 9 months redesigning her kitchen to fit her find.

No, Pickert isn't some persnickety homeowner with a penchant for one-of-a-kind wares, but rather a remodeler trying to do things the environmentally friendly way.

And she's succeeding.

Last fall, Pickert's Portland, Oregon, home, a 1907 "four square," was featured in Portland's Second Annual Green Building Home Tour--an example of how salvaged materials can give new life to an old space.

Pickert, a higher education administrator, found her cabinets, complete with Corian countertops and original hardware, at The ReBuilding Center, a Portland nonprofit salvage shop. She reconfigured the cabinets to fit her space and added a new coat of paint, had the solid surface countertops refabricated (with enough left over for two culling boards) and polished the old hardware to a shine. She also installed a reclaimed hardwood floor that had formerly been used in a Boys and Girls Club. And she even reused the home's original kitchen baseboard and trim.

"What's surprising is how seamless those cabinets look in my kitchen," Pickett says. "They fit the character of my home perfectly. Most people look at them and ask 'Why did the former owners take them out of their kitchen?' I had to repaint them, but other than that, they were in fabulous shape."

Healthy Home

As Pickert learned, creating an eco-friendly space isn't particularly difficult, nor is it necessarily more expensive than conventional remodeling--the same materials Picker picked up secondhand for $1,700 would have cost roughly $10,000. It does, however, require research, patience and a lot of thought.

Typically, people inclined toward eco-friendly practices consider such issues as energy use, sustainability and whether or not a product will be harmful to the environment.

When it comes to our homes, however, there is another consideration--eco-friendly should mean not only good for the planet, but good for our health as well. "You need to be aware of your indoor air quality and that it is created by the products that are in a space," says Denver designer Shelly Black. "When choosing materials, you need to think about whether there's a lot of glue in the product and [whether or not it's] in direct sunlight. If it is, it's probably outgassing potential toxins that you're breathing into your lungs and that are connecting with the foods you're preparing."

(Outgassing is the term used to describe the process in which chemicals escape from a material into the atmosphere. If you've ever smelled a new car, carpet or shower curtain, you've been exposed to outgassing.)

Chic Cabinets

Among the biggest kitchen culprits for outgassing is the cabinetry--typically made of particleboard or melamine.

"If you did nothing else in your entire kitchen, finding an alternative to conventional particleboard would accomplish more than just about everything else put together," says architect Darrel DeBoer of Alameda, California. "Conventional particleboard has some fairly toxic glues in it. They're made from urea formaldehyde ... one of the most sensitizing chemicals the industry has come up with. It causes allergic reactions in people."

Until recently, the best alternative was to find good old-fashioned solid wood cabinets. Now there's another option: wheatboard.

"Wheatboard is like a wood-based particleboard except it's made from chopped tip wheal straw and glued together with a better glue that does not outgas," says DeBoer. "It's just a much more stable mix than traditional particleboard and formaldehyde-based glues."

Two other options DeBoer recommends is to use 1-by-12 pine instead of plywood or particleboard, or to use an exterior grade of plywood, which, he says, "Is much less water-soluble, so it will outgas at a rate of 1,000 times less than standard plywood."

Fabulous Floors

Just as particleboard is the culprit in cabinetry, vinyl is the big offender underfoot. It not only outgasses chemicals, but when burned, such as in a landfill, those chemicals become deadly toxins.

One of the more popular eco-friendly alternatives isn't a new material, but one you might recall from childhood--linoleum. Today, you're most likely to hear it referred to as Marmoleum. Made of pine rosins, wood flour and linseed oil with a jute fiber backing, Marmoleum, is touted as biodegradable, allergen-free, bacteria-resistant and easy to clean.

"Another really good one," says DeBoer, "is cork flooring. The bark is harvested every 9 years. They make wine corks, and what's left is ground up and used in sheets of flooring. "I've seen cork floors in courthouses dating from the 1930s, and it's still there all these years later. It's a good choice for a kitchen because it's easy to clean. You can get it in 12-inch squares or in tongue and groove."

Floors made from bamboo also come highly recommended because the bamboo plant grows so quickly, making it a highly sustainable crop. Clay-based saltillo tiles, ceramic tiles and stone--all of which are durable and do not outgas--are also good options.

Chichi Countertops

Finding the right material for countertops can be a bit trickier, particularly in the area close to the sink. Laminates, such as Formica, which DeBoer describes as "the vinyl of the countertop," are bad news for all the same reasons as the material on the floor. Any material that's woodbased, such as bamboo, will likely be susceptible to water damage. Both concrete and stainless steel are impervious to water and long-lasting, but they are energy-intensive to make. Stones, such as granite and marble, are also durable, but again the quarrying of the materials uses a great deal of energy.

This is one surface, says DeBoer, where recycled plastics can be a good idea. Origins, a product by the Missouri firm of Yemm & Hart is made entirely from recycled milk and detergent bottles, is nontoxic and, says, DeBoer, "It's better than sending the plastic to the landfill."

Nouveaux Riche

While it is commonly held that the more use one can get from a material, the better for the planet, when it comes to appliances and windows, new is almost always better.

Pickert replaced all of her single-pane glass with double-pane, but then took it one step further, reconfiguring her windows to take advantage of the natural light. "I had two on the north and one on the east. I switched them so I could bring in more sunlight. It makes a dramatic difference."

Not only does more starlight mean less artificial light and thus energy savings, but, says Black, "Natural light is good for our health. Our pineal gland is the light meter for the body; it uses light to energize us. If you have a lot of natural light coming in through the house, you're going to naturally feel better."

Pickert also splurged on a new refrigerator and dishwasher, knowing the energy savings would be well worth the cost.

"Refrigerator manufacturers have made huge strides in energy efficiency," says DeBoer. "Anything you buy new would be better than what you have. You can look at the yellow tags on the appliance in the sales room and compare how much energy each refrigerator will use. The fine print on the bottom gives you a dollar amount that yon can compare apples to apples with."

DeBoer also believes it's worth it to buy a new stove lather use an older model. But, while DeBoer believes gas models are generally more energy-efficient, Black is concerned about the effect of gas on her indoor air quality and prefers an electric stove. "I don't feel well when I have a gas range in my home. I'm a gourmet chef, and it's a greater way to cook, but I'm not comfortable with what it does to my air quality."

As for dishwashers, not only is it smart to buy a new one, DeBoer also recommends spending the extra money for the higher-quality models, which are quieter, use less energy and generally last longer.

While creating an eco-friendly kitchen can take more time, more thought and sometimes more money, DeBoer says it's well worth it.

"Think about how much time you're going to spend being around these materials. You're breathing the air], caring off the countertop, touching the drawer pulls and the drawers--and what they are made of gets inside of you. You have to think about that."

Naturally Clean

If you tried green kitchen cleansers years ago and were disappointed, it's time to try again. "The early products were overpriced and ineffective," says John Vlahakis, founder and president of Earth Friendly Products in Winnetka, Illinois. Today's products use surfactants--the ingredients that cut dirt and grease and generate suds--made from plants and vegetables, such as corn, instead of from petroleum.

"In the past decade, there has been exponential growth in the availability of [plant-based] raw materials, which has led to lower prices," says Peter Malaise, concept manager for Ecover, a Belgium-based company that has manufactured environmentally friendly cleaning products since 1979. The company's dishwashing liquid, for example, contains surfactants made from vegetable oil, as well as ingredients such as aloe vera and wheat protein.

Many green companies have also written their own cleaning manifestos. Earth Friendly Products created a "Freedom Code" that lists more than 50 chemical ingredients that the company refuses to use in its products. Similarly, Seventh Generation details its product pledge online: "Our products are designed to work as well as their traditional counterparts, but use renewable, non-toxic, phosphate-free and biodegradable ingredients, and are never tested on animals."

Eco-friendly products from these and other manufacturers--such as Mountain Green or Jason Natural Products--abound for all of the morns of your home. These cleaning products will leave your surfaces flee of dirt and smelling flesh--without the addition of harmful ingredients. Check your local natural products store for more information.

--Jennifer Pirtle

COPYRIGHT 2004 PRIMEDIA Intertec, a PRIMEDIA Company. All Rights Reserved.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group