By Recycla
When you spill something, what do you usually reach for to clean up the mess? If you answered “paper towels” then you are among the majority of people who do the same.
And, when you clean, what do you use? Some sort of disposable cleaning cloths or, again, paper towels?
What if, the next time you reached for a paper towel, instead you reached for a cotton rag? Why? Because every time you don’t use a disposable paper product, you’re taking a step toward saving Planet Earth. And, like toilet paper, Americans’ use of paper towels far outstrips any other country on the planet.
Don’t waste your money or this planet’s resources on something so needlessly wasteful.
But what can you use instead of paper towels or some other paper product?
Rags.
Made from old t-shirts or other clothing that would otherwise go into a landfill, rags are far more ec0-friendly than paper towels. They don’t produce waste because they are endlessly reusable. Best of all, they’re free. The next time you’re about to throw out a t-shirt because it is somehow ruined, don’t. Instead just cut it up and use it whenever you would need a paper towel.
In the past year, Recycla’s family has shifted away from using paper towels and single-use cleaning cloths (such as Clorox wipes) and made a conscious effort to use cloth rags instead. She still has paper towels in her kitchen, but they’re tucked away under the sink and only rarely used. Instead, when one of her children inevitably spills a cup of milk, they reach into a handy drawer and pull out rags to mop up the mess. And, when Recycla cleans house, she uses rags instead of paper towels. And, contrary to what you might think, these extra rags don’t add much to the family’s laundry load, so the water used to wash them is negligible.
Everyone in Recycla’s household lives in cotton t-shirts and whenever one gets too ratty to be worn anymore, she cuts it into 12″ x 12″ squares and tosses the pieces either into her handy kitchen drawer or one of her cleaning caddies. She would do the same with old socks, but her daughters like to use those for sock puppets. Cutting up a t-shirt takes about two minutes and is FREE.
Think about how easy this is. And, the next time you reach for a paper towel, don’t.
Yay!
I used to use a roll of paper towels a week. Now I maybe use one every 2 months. Most of the time we use rags and on rare occasion, biodegradable single use wipes (Method).
It’s cheaper and better for the environment ~ win, win!
I’m working on this step little by little. Right now I’m working on figuring out the right place to keep rags in the kitchen to make them accessible. We have plenty!
Old cloth diapers make great cleaning rags. We paid to keep about 1/2 of the diapers from our final diaper service delivery years ago. In addition, we used them as burp cloths and binkies over the years.