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help with using less paper towels
Like i said in my last post I am not really a green person but try my best not to waste stuff. I switch off lights, buy local food, am a vegetarian. I dont know whether all this can be called being green or not.
Anyway, one thing that I cant seem to give up is paper towels. I have a huge amount of counter space in the kitchen that I clean everyday with vinegar. Whenever I do the dishes, water splashes all around which needs to be dried. I use paper towels for all that (I do try and rinse the towel and wipe again). We probably use 12 big rolls of towels in a month.
I would use cloths but I need ideas.
1) there are so many- the super absorbent ones (shown on TV) seem most attractive. Any reviews on them? If not these what other absorbent towels are there in the market?
2) How do you wash them? I would hate for them to keep collecting in the basket...damp....smelly. I just do laundry once a week.
How do you use, store and wash yours?
thanks
Re: help with using less paper towels
Yes, that's green! And every bit counts! If every single person just made a reasonable effort to recyle, reduce the waste they make, and make good choices it would make a HUGE impact.
OMG 12 rolls of paper towels a MONTH? *faints*
Sorry...I live in a special little bubble of unreality so that's just super shocking to me. I didn't even grow up using paper towels so I can't even imagine!
The first step IMO is to put them out of reach, or just don't have any at all. I never own paper towels.
Why waste paper for wiping up water? Why not just use a kitchen towel and then dry that out?
As for what kind of rags...oh whatever. I have all sorts, some old wash cloths, some car/multipurpose rags from costco, etc. I just wash them as I would anything else. Generally I tend do do heavier cleaning around the same time as I do laundry so things aren't sitting around, but even if they do, just rinse and lay out to dry or I throw them in the open washing machine to wait the next load. I've never had a problem with them getting nasty. I also use sponges and just run them through the dishwasher when I run a load.
I have never thought about putting sponges in the dishwasher. Thank you for that inspired idea!
As for towels... what I do is have 2-3 regular towels in circulation. When one gets fairly wet, it goes onto my radiator to dry (though I guess over the oven handle or wherever else will work just as well) and the next one comes into play. By the time the third towel is wet, the first one is dry again. They all hang to dry over night, and every couple/three days I replace them all in the morning with a fresh set of 3 towels. Because the used ones are fully dry, they can sit in a laundry basket until laundry day without getting mildew.
I cook all meals at home, and since the kids come home from school for lunch where I live, this usually means substantial counter washing plus all the splashes from hand-washing. I could easily see how I would burn through 12 rolls of paper towels. Instead, I have been using the same 12 kitchen towels for over two years now.
I still haven't totally gone paper towel-free, but what has really helped me cut down on my use is buying a cheap, pretty wicker basket from Ikea that sits between the sink and the paper towel holder. I just bought some cheap dishtowels from Ikea as well, plus some microfiber ones from TJ maxx to put in there. Now, I am forced to actually reach past or around the cloth towels to get to the paper ones, which makes me think twice about using the paper. Eventually, I'll probably just move the papertowels totally out of the way, like the laundry room, but my DH needs baby steps!
also, I have a small cheapo garbage can from Target that I have under my sink to put the dirty ones in. When the bin is full, I just toss them in the washer, probably about once a week. If' I was just wiping up water around the sink, I hook it around the fridge door handle or oven handle to dry and then reuse.
I've been using microfiber cloths that I got in the automotive section at Target. They were half the price of the specially designated cleaning ones that were basically identical. They work really well but I want to replace them with something that matches the kitchen better. I keep them in a decorative pottery bowl on the counter - we repainted and they don't match anymore. I know that's vain but whatever. I did a trial run with old flannel pj bottoms and they worked quite well, too, so I might switch to that and make my own.
We have a reusable grocery bag hanging in the kitchen and we throw all our kitchen towels in there and wash once a week. I will admit it got a little stinky once so we had to wash sooner than planned but it's normally fine. We go through 1-2 microfiber cloths/day for counters and wiping up the sink area, 1 wash cloth and 2 drying towels every few days.
Tired after a long morning of hiking and swimming.
They do?? I just wash mine with whatever. LMAO @ your color issue! That's cute. You need to get matching ones then so you can decorate with them!
Maybe they don't? I thought I read on a post here that if you wash them with other items, they pick up lint from them. So if you use them for cleaning things like mirrors you leave little fuzzies all over the place. The pretty colored ones are more expensive.
I'm going to wait until I find a good sale on them and buy ones in prettier colors, and use all of the yellow ones for cleaning up meat juice in Nan's crate and where the monstas eat.
Old cut up T-shirts work great for us. As for washing, just wash a seperate load on hot when you've got a stash of dirties built up. I have additional info that answers your other questions in my blog entry on the subject.
For just general splashed water, normal dish towels should do the job. We use one a night and it dries by the next day. We kind of have a downgrading system. Day 1 the towel gets used to wipe dishes dry, day 2 is gets used to clean up spills and splashes.
Over time, I've collected several different types of rags/towels. Any of these or what other posters have suggested work fine, I just happen to have collected a mismash of various towels over a several month period.
I have waffle-weave dish towels from BB&B for drying dishes, hands, and countertops; tight-knit no fuzz towels from Crate & Barrel for washing & drying our cast iron pan; bar towels from BB&B for spills and other messes; Twist brand bamboo cloths for dusting; Twist brand reusable sponges; and a bunch of random cut-up t-shirts for really messy stuff like when DH changes the oil in his motorcycle. We only use paper towels for pet messes. We use about a roll a month. When they're wet/dirty, I throw them in the washer. We don't generate nearly enough towels to fill a whole load, all my towels together are maybe a quarter of one load. So we get clean towels when the machine gets filled with regular clothes. We do 1-2 loads of laundry a week.
Maybe Dh and I are weird or "nasty" but we really don't have cloths for particular functions. When we hand wash dishes we always let those dishes air dry. We use a sponge to clean up any wet messes or a towel if we need to leave an area dry (ie if we are baking and need to roll out something on the counter)--otherwise, we just let the counter air dry after using the sponge (and we too, throw ours in the dishwasher as Alisha suggested). Our stash of towels is pretty much all-purpose*--and we use the same 1-2 towels a week or so, or if they get grungy before hand, we let them dry overnight and toss it down to the laundry--and then we just launder them with our regular laundry, which happens anywhere from every 1.5 weeks to 2 weeks. Maybe that means we are a story in excess, but it helps us to not think or debate if we should use a real towel or a paper towel. 99.5% of the time, we just use a real towel.
*The only exception to the rule is that we do keep certain towels for food safe uses (ie wrapping lettuce in a towel) and also a few that are reserved only for furniture oiling and shoe polishing.
Oh yeah, it did say to wash with lint-free stuff... but I don't think much of my laundry is very linty, maybe some fuzzy blankets. I haven't noticed any change.
I actually bought a bunch of new ones at Goodwill. They always have deals on random new stuff like kitchen/cleaning stuff and socks.
BUBBLE TWINS!!!
You crack me up J!!
Its funny how this board has made me realize that. Even my 'non-EF' friends don't use paper products, compost, and try to use less. And I was so shocked to find out there are places you are allowed to throw out toxic stuff like tvs in regular garbage! EEK!
I like my bubble!
They see us rollin'...they be hatin'.
My parents seriously go through a roll a day. No joke. I grew up using paper towels, paper napkins and paper plates for dinner.