Once you start really thinking about it, paper products seem like an easy place to make environmental change. To get paper towels to you, trees are grown and cut down and transported. Manufacturing plants are using water and energy to turn the wood into pulp, which may be then transported again to make the paper towels. Products like bleach and sometimes dyes are transported, added, and sometimes leaked into waterways. Separately, the plastic packaging is being made, of course, from oil and other products and transported. And, the paper towel tubes are going through their own manufacturing and transportation. The combined product is then transported to a supplier, to a store, to your home, often using big, polluting trucks. Then the paper towel is used for about 5 seconds before it is thrown into the trash! Then, of course, in a paper towel’s afterlife, there are garbage trucks, landfills, and so on.
REDUCE
So, how can we reduce our use of paper towels?
My favorite option is cloth. You have be a little careful with this. Buying a huge amount of new cotton cloth isn’t necessarily doing the best things for our environment. Cotton is a crop that uses a lot of pesticides, water waste, etc. If you’re looking to use cloth wipes, try buying from yard sales or second-hand shops. Better yet, find some old, but clean clothes or sheets that aren’t in a condition to be donated, and cut them up for towels. Or, look for fabrics like organic cotton, linen, hemp, bamboo. We’ve also cut up old dish towels that have passed their prime.
Once you’ve got your cloth, decide on a system that feels right for you. Paper towels are used in so many different ways.
Cleaning
In the past, we’ve used linen cleaning cloths as our counter cleaners. Currently, we are loving using and reusing bamboo “paper towels.” They’ve lasted for a looong time and have held up very well to the washing machine and dryer.
For cleaning floors or grimier things, we have a basket of cut-up fabrics from clothes and sheets that were no longer appropriate for donation. We have bins for our clean cloths and a bin for our dirty ones. It takes a bit of effort to set up a system, but once you’ve got it going, it’s so worth it.
The cloth is better for the environment, cheaper, and way more effective and absorbent. Be sure if you’re using cloth, to wash and dry responsibly. Figure out a system so you know which cloths you feel comfortable combining in the wash. Washing separate small loads of cloths by themselves really isn’t doing much to help the environment. Consider hanging out to dry or watch for a future post on dryers for tips there.
Napkins
If you’re using paper towels as napkins, you can also consider cloth. (Napkin post)
Drying hands
Consider having a cloth towel for drying your hands at home. At a public restroom, shake out your hands before grabbing a paper towel to reduce how many you grab. Better yet, use a hand dryer. For truly committed environmentalists…you could carry a cloth towel that hooks to your bag and avoid the paper towel use or energy use in the public restroom.
Where else?
Start noticing where else you’re using paper towels and if they can be replaced with something more environmentally sustainable. For instance, one friend brought up that she used to use a folded paper towel to rest her honey spoon on in the morning. Now she uses a small dish instead.
Not ready to part with paper towels? but still want to reduce
Some more ways to reduce your use if you’re not ready to completely part with paper towels:
–Keep the paper towels less accessible. (If the paper towels are harder to get to, you’re less likely to use them.)
–Buy the paper towels where you can easily select smaller sizes or cut your paper towels in half.
REUSE?
Can you reuse paper towels? Well, it depends. If you’ve just used a paper towel to wipe water from clean hands or catch some bread crumbs, you can probably let it dry or shake it out, and give it another use for wiping up a dirty floor board. But, hopefully, after reading this, you’re considering not really using paper towels for simple things like drying hands or catching crumbs… Right?
RECYCLE?
Are paper towels recyclable? Well, the answer I keep reading is, no. Most of the fibers in paper towels are too short to make it through the recycling process. And paper towels that are oily or grimy really shouldn’t be mixed into recycling anyway. So, please don’t think you’re doing your part by throwing paper towels into the recycling. Check first. Likely, it’s contaminating other recycling and making people’s jobs harder at the recycling plant.
BUT…if your paper towels are unbleached and not too oily or contaminated, it’s very likely you could add them to your compost pile. Look into it and see if that option works for you!
So, there’s obviously more to paper towels than just the towels themselves. The plastic wrap can be added any place plastic bags are accepted. And the core paper towel tubes should be recycled as well. But, I will be covering these two items in greater detail in other posts.
Tips for more responsible paper towels
In my opinion, cloth is a far superior option to paper towels anyway. Apart from the environmental benefits, they are cheaper and so much more effective than paper towels ever could be. Also, you never find yourself having to run to the store because the paper towels have run out.
If you’re really not ready to part with paper towels though, or you’d like some on hand for occasional uses…
–Try bamboo “paper” towels. The price may seem surprising at first, but bamboo towels are usually sturdy enough to be washed in the washing machine and reused many, many times. (I might be embarrassed to tell you how long we’ve been reusing ours…) Bamboo is also a plant that can easily regrow, as opposed to trees. These towels are also far more effective and absorbent than paper towels.
–Look for paper towels made from 100% recycled content. If you can’t find that, look for the highest percentage of recycled content.
–Try to find unbleached paper towels. I think we’ve let corporate America fool us with the whole bleach thing. Bleach is horrible for our environment and bad for our health. Brown paper towels are healthier for everyone. If you can’t find unbleached, look for then process chlorine free then elemental chlorine free
–Avoid paper towels with designs. These are made with dyes, which, again, are bad for our environment and our health. If you’re itching for “cute” paper towels, find or make some cute cloth towels instead.
Thank you so much for being here! Our actions can and will make a difference.
