When you spill something, what do you usually reach for to clean up the mess? And, when you clean, what do you use?
If you answered “paper towels” then you are among the majority of people who do the same.
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. 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.
About a year ago, Recycla’s family stopped using paper towels and started using 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 and Mr. Recycla clean house, they use rags instead of paper towels. 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. 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.
We’ve been paper towel free (mostly) for over a year now. It was easy–I hung a towel where the paper towels USED to be and inconveniently put the paper towels away in a cupboard. No one digs for them, they grab the towel on the rack!
This has been an on-going fight between my hubby and I. No matter how “inconveniently” paper towel is located, he puts it back on the counter. When we run out, totally, I don’t buy it and he comes home with it. I have so many squares in the drawers, on the oven door bar, on the counter, and even on the floor as a floor rag. But this is one habit my hubby can’t seem to break! It drive me NUTS!!
Sing it, sister! I’ve even started organizing my rag baskets into large and small sizes. My hubs and son live in t-shirts; as they wear out or stain, it’s a never-ending supply of cleaning rags.
My Mom used to call them washrags instead of washclothes ‘cuz she used them ’til they were rags – and that’s the truth. Then they became rag-rags for cleaning up messes around the house.
Mom was green B4 it was kewl
Mom was green when I was in gradeschool