Really the most "green" way to deal with a kitchen is replace your appliances with energy efficient ones and leave the rest as it is, unless it is really falling apart. Unfortunately the heavy duty renovation that most of us do is not at all green it its core. I sold my cabinets, but everything else ended up in a landfill, and the new cabinets took trees and energy to make, and the countertop came out of a big hole in the ground.

I hate to sound like an Eyeore (well I am, sorry) but if you took the 1980s fridge out of my parents kitchen, at its heart it would be more "green" than any new LEEDS certified kitchen simply because its been in service for 41 years and they have never been compelled to "un-dated" it.

I wish it were a little more clear cut as to what the right green choices even *are*, but that is clouded with controversy: is a stewarded, non-endangered species wood floor green if it has to be freighted halfway around the world to get to my door? What about "inert" concrete floors? The production of concrete has a negative environmental impact. It would be great if there were real answers on how to be green when it involves demolishing something just because we don't like the esthetics or because something is inconvenient, but there isn't.
Maybe thats why there havent been responses to the question...

Its a great topic really, but I think the whole idea is in baby steps at this point.

When I first started dreaming of a new kitchen years ago I knew it would be budget so I started looking a Lyptus cabinets. At that time Lyptus was cheaper than maple and I thought oh how neat I can be environmentally friendly at the same time. Well, then everyone started jumping on ripping off the consumer who wants to do for the environment band wagon and the prices for lyptus has soared to the land of mega rich. Too many greedy people getting rich in the name of "good for the environment" products. I did change the frig to energy star though.

Has anyone asked their contractor to donate their used cabinets to Habitat for Humanity, or someplace similar?

You have excellent points. I guess when one is thinking about the environment and our choices, it's hard to not get depressed. However, in sharing ideas and different ways of doing things, you can make a change. I think that's what forums like this are all about.

Hope you had a good earth day.

I think it is a good topic, and I hope there will be some further discussion about how to offset the various impacts of renovating by making certain wise choices.

Whoops, that was more for palimpsest, there weren't any other replies when I started!

jterrilynn, you have a really good point- so often environmental things are so much more expensive. Often unnecessarily. The benefit of doing things on a budget is that you really push yourself to reuse, which is cheap and environmentally friendly. eastbaymom, the habitat for humanity restore is a great place to go. We have a neat non profit architectural salvage place near us which is amazing.

There are some neat daily environmental things people do in the kitchen, like composting, worm bins, recycling. I've definitly seen some threads where people have planned for those in thier kitchen. I didn't, and would love to see people's ideas.

Everything is a tradeoff. Autumngal, reusing is very good! Be proud of yourself.

I chose what I liked. A lot of my materials have aspirations toward the green, but they weren't chosen for that, and those are only aspirations, rather than reality. (Lots of non-local otherwise greenish things.) Everything from the old kitchen was disposed of responsibly. The usable cabinets and appliances went into others' homes, the rotten stuff, broken tile, concrete and drywall were sorted and recycled if possible.

The un-green thing I've done is sent back the dishwasher that has a heater but doesn't actually dry the dishes for one that likely uses more energy but dries.

The Earth Day-like green thing I've been doing is being better about saving out the peelings and stems for the green can. I did put a grapefruit rind down the disposer, but that was because it freshens the disposer (besides being more convenient ;) ).