I’m going to share something crazy. We haven’t bought a roll of paper towels since we got married in 2018! We’ve been living without paper towels for three and a half years! Paper towels aren’t necessary! Now before you throw your paper towels at me, hear me out. Paper towels haven’t been around for long; they were invented in 1879. Many generations lived happy life’s never using a paper towel.
I grew up using paper towels to dry my hands and clean up spills and everything in between. But let me tell you- it is so wasteful. When I went to my aunt’s house they used cloth towels for cleaning up messes. I always felt awkward because it wasn’t what we did in my home. But now I look back and frequently applaud her shrewd behavior.
She had 5 kids and a menagerie of animals. But for most of life’s daily messes she used a wash rag to clean up. (They did have a roll or two of paper towels hidden away for cleaning up dog poop, but I didn’t know that until I was an adult.). I remember watching her wet a rag and wash down the counters and the kitchen table with it before a meal was eaten or after we made something, or had a tea party. It was so different from what I experienced in my home, that it stood out to me.
Related: 19 Ways To Save Money
Before I got married, I spent hours perusing a ton of blogs about going zero waste. I was obsessed. I wanted to reduce my garbage output and get the most natural things possible. Now I’m more into convenience for many things due to having small children close in age, but deciding to continue not using paper towels is something that has stuck.
How we use cloth instead of paper towels
- Instead of drying my hands with a paper towel, I use a well placed hand towel. We keep one on the oven handle.
- Instead of cleaning a spill with a paper towel, I use an absorbent microfiber cloth like this.
- For wiping hands from food, we use cloth napkins.
- When cleaning our home, I use high quality h2o at home towels.
- If my son misses the potty we use a cloth diaper pre-fold to mop it up.
- For extra gross things (ie. poop) I have 5 designated cloths that I use exclusively for that kind of thing. If my daughter is having naked time and poops on the floor, I grab one of my extra gross cloths, as I call them, and take it to the toilet using that.
Storing & washing
We store our cloths in a drawer in the kitchen. I keep my cloths neatly folded and tucked away, ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice. I have an extra reserve under the kitchen sink where I hide the extra gross cloths and some normal dish rags. Dirty cloths go into a plastic bucket in the drawer underneath the clean ones. The extra gross cloths get washed with the cloth diapers, so they go into the diaper hamper.
My cloths are mostly microfiber so they need to be washed on cold. I use a special detergent from H2O at home to clean them. I then make sure to line dry them after my devastating experience with not doing so. If they are dried at too high of a temperature, they do not absorb as well or at all.
Not using paper towels does require one or two extra loads of laundry each week, but laundry is a chore I don’t mind. If you don’t want to use microfiber, it is completely possible to to not use paper towels without using microfiber. You can use tea towels, hand towels, washcloths, rags, pretty much any kind of fabric will work to replace a paper towel.
We have saved money by not buying paper towels. Instead we reuse cloths which is a much more sustainable option. If you need more tips on how to save money check out my post on how to save money on food.
