Friday, August 7, 2009

Living Without Paper Towels

For many this will be old hand, but as I was folding today it felt like a good thing to post about. I don't know how long it's been now, quite a long time I'm sure, but we no longer use paper towels. It's honestly been one of the easiest things to transition to. I rarely even notice that we don't use them anymore. The only times I think I do is when the stomach flu is going around here or the dog has a bad accident. But with the day to day things, it's cake.

We use primarily three things.

Dishcloths. Not only are those for dishes, avoiding having to buy sponget, but wiping up spills, thing that need a wet wipe, these are great.


Little rags. These are free free free. Anything that has holes, gets too stained, quitter socks, etc. get cut up and turned into these smaller rags. We use these for noses, for picking up that piece of squished banana off the floor, things like that and also for anything that you REALLY want to just throw the rag away when you clean up. Those are very rare, but they happen and being that they're just old socks and shirts, no tears are shed if it has to go in the trash. Ours live in this hanging basket to be easily grabbed.


Dishtowels and surgical rags. Dishtowels are self explanatory. Hand drying, etc. all need dishtowel. But we are also blessed with surgical rags. My great aunt and uncle send them in boxes when they pack gifts, etc. They are super absorbant and great for anything really! Here soon I will be cutting and edging all old ripped towels as well. Smaller pieces of thick towels with a zigzag edge make fabulous fabulous rags.

And of course there's the old standby, cloth napkins. And we'll just pretend they're nice and folded in the drawer. Cloth napkins don't need an explanation do they? The only problem I have with them is there never seems to be enough here. I need more.

See? Not hard. There's something for every use of a paper towel. Cake.

4 comments:

tinykittenz said...

Great!! I don't use paper towels either :) Just couldn't wrap my head around buying it to throw it away!! I hadn't thought of the small rags.. I bet tee shirt material is great on noses! :)

Anonymous said...

We use tons of washcloths and rags from old clothes too.

The only problem I have is that now the I have all these kitchen helpers in the evening. Sidney uses a rag to wipe counters. Lincoln uses a rag to wipe down the table. I am using a rag to wash dishes. Rachel and Prairie are using rags to wipe down the microwave and cabinets.


So we have all these damp rags and not enough places to lay them out to dry and they get smelly thrown in a clump.
I may have to keep a bucket of water and vingar to thrown them in under the sink until wash day.
Do you have any ideas?
Tina (from HK)

Alexas said...

I love not using paper towels....sure, I go through a ton of rags, napkins, and hand towels, but it doesn't really add to my laundry. I need to track down one of those hanging baskets! My mom had one when we were growing up, and I have thought many times how much i would love to have one!

Dana said...

Agreeing 100% with one confession... I use paper towels to drain greasy stuff... like turkey bacon (which we don't actually eat very often and isn't really that greasy at all), ground beef, french fries...

Do you not ever have greasy foods that need to drain? Or what?

Help oh wise papertowellessone!