Sense Energy Monitor

If you take a look at your electric bill, the only thing it will tell you is how much electricity you consume and how much you owe over a one month period. It won’t tell you anything about how you use electricity. Sure, you know that lighting, appliances, and electronics take some electricity to run, but how much, and when? How do you know how to prioritize your efforts in being more energy efficient? The Sense Energy Monitor helps solve this problem by providing insight into how and where energy is being used in your home.  To get started, a licensed electrician will need to install this device onto your electrical panel. You then download the app for iOS or Android and connect the monitor to your home Wi-Fi signal. Over the coming days and weeks, the Sense Monitor will send updates to your phone, letting you know which devices are pulling power in your home as well as revealing trends in your home power use. Besides allowing you to have more control over how energy is being used in your home, this device will send you updates if your oven is still turned on or if the drain pump has been running for several hours. This Energy Tracker Monitor currently costs $299 and will quickly begin to deliver savings by helping you to cut back on your home energy use. 

Looking for something less expensive but along those same lines? The Kill-a-Watt electricity usage monitor, which sells for $15.99, will tell you how much wattage any one appliance uses simply by plugging the appliance into it (and plugging it into an outlet).

Compost Pail

To reduce the amount of waste that goes in the dumpster, recycling is becoming more and more common—but recycling only applies to paper, plastic, glass, and metal. What about all those food scraps and food waste? Compost it! If you don’t have an outdoor compost pile (or don’t want one), and your city picks up organics, you can start separating out your compost waste—but you’ll need some sort of container. Williams Sonoma’s Full Circle Fresh Air Compost Collector sells for $29.95 and has some nice features: it allows air to flow through, so it doesn’t start smelling within a day or two while sitting on your counter. The lid opens with the push of a button, so it’s easy to fill up, and it’s even made of recycled plastic. 

Organic Cotton Dish Towels

Using reusable dishtowels instead of paper towels dramatically cuts down on the waste of single-use disposable items. And as long as you are going for the fabric option, choose organic cotton towels. Why? Cotton is one of the most pesticide-heavy crops, which damages our ecosystem (you can read more about that here). Coyuchi waffle kitchen towels sell for $48 for a set of six beautiful towels—if your kitchen could smile, it would!

Glass Jars with Chalkboard Labels

How to reduce packaging waste? One of the first things to do to transform your kitchen into a more sustainable one is to start purchasing products in bulk—but you need to be able to store the products in their own containers. Start with these hermetically sealed glass jars from the Container Store, starting at $7.99 for a 25-ounce container. They have chalkboard labels, so you can easily write down the contents and erase it if you switch to another product. Get started with rice, flour, sugar, oats, lentils, and nuts—things you’d typically find in the bulk purchasing aisles. When lined up along a counter or in a pantry, they are much prettier than a row of packaged goods, and add a touch of color to your kitchen!