Almost exactly four weeks ago, we moved into this house. And today I realized that I haven’t bought a single roll of paper towels–nor a package of napkins (okay, except for the napkins I sent to school with Isaac’s birthday treat)–in that entire time.
Before we moved, I’d been working on cutting back on our consumption of paper products, focusing on those pesky paper towels that are so easy to grab in larger quantities than you really need and so very…disposable. But I always had a roll of paper towels on hand for “emergencies”. Well, you know how THAT goes. One day you can’t find a towel and you’ve got a little mess on the counter so you pull out the roll…and then you figure that since it’s out you may as well do a good wipe-down of all the kitchen surfaces…and then you leave it out during dinner and the kids each rip off a full square or two.
So during my inaugural visit to the local grocery store to stock up on staples, I grabbed trash bags and toilet paper, but then paused in front of the paper towel selection and thought.
What if I just…didn’t buy any?
What mess could be so hellish that a regular dish towel (or, in an extreme case, a bath towel) wouldn’t do the trick? How hard could it really be to make sure there were always a few cloth napkins in the drawer for hand-wiping? How likely would it be that we’d actually have an emergency that would require the use of paper towels?
So I didn’t buy them. And haven’t since.
And guess what? We have all survived just fine. We have a drawer in the kitchen stuffed with dish towels and washcloths, and just grab whatever we need for the job at hand. I’ve delegated all the holey and orphaned socks to a bag in the pantry, and use them for cleaning the bathroom and kitchen surfaces. When a napkin or sock has been used, we toss it in a basket that’s in an inconspicuous corner of the kitchen. When supplies run low, I dump the basket in the washing machine and wash it on hot, sometimes along with other items that need a hot wash.
It’s so easy not to use paper towels, I can’t believe I never committed more firmly to it before. In fact, I’d say that I’d now be more annoyed by the amount of hassle it would take to carry a bulk-size package to the car and then into the house, than I am by the very minor amount of extra work it takes to wash the towels. I guess it’s just a matter of getting in the mindset and sticking to it (like meal planning or cloth diapering or anything else that takes only a teeny amount of discipline, but a good amount of preparation.) The nice thing is that now that we have a system, there should really be no reason we’d need to break down and get paper towels. You can get cloth napkins and dish towels at the thrift store for a song and a dance, and with four boys, I’ve got a steady supply of holey socks heading to the rag bag.
Have you made any changes lately that you thought would be a pain, but were surprisingly easy?
We go back and forth with paper towels. Right now, we’re in a recycled paper towels phase — but when given a choice, I find everyone in house reaches for the organic prefold diapers we now use as kitchen towels. (It’s also a great set-up for lines like, “Hey, after you put that in the dishwasher, would you give your dad a fresh diaper over there on the counter?”)
My family actually replaces paper products with cloth in all sorts of ways. The switch that met the most resistance was cloth wipes in place of toilet paper for grown-ups (we don’t do that anymore). The one that went the easiest was soft, old cotton bandannas instead of Kleenex (nobody tolerates scratchy paper products on sensitive noses anymore). It’s a lot of bang for one little load of laundry!
I’m with you on the paper towels. Another way to go about it if you are lazy like me is just to put your paper towels up a flight of them and the cloth rags right in the kitchen. I haven’t bought paper towels in a year. And I still have 3/4 of the ones I bought a year ago cause I am so committed to laziness! The one thing I thought would be more high maintenance than it turned out to be is composting. I got a tumbler and a little bucket I keep by the sink. We have a dog to walk so it’s not an extra trip down my back steps! Key point. Anyways, I now am really bummed when my composter is not functioning (bolts snapped, I had to have a handyman rescue my tumbler a couple weeks ago) cause our trash is not only so much MORE but more SMELLY. Nice post! Let me know what else my lazy self can adopt!
we’ve been using the reusable grocery bags. i really like it. i feel like there is so much i feel guilty about that when i can say, “we don’t need a bag” i can add a point to the no-guilt side of the line. i can’t believe how much better i feel about myself when we come home with no plastic grocery bags.
MamaBird, thanks for the composting reminder! I’ve been meaning to do it forever and keep forgetting to buy a composter. Do you just use a regular bucket for inside the house or did you buy one of those countertop compost holders?
Melanie–I own 5 or 6 cloth grocery bags and am continually forgetting to take them to the grocery store with me. I think I’m going to have to remember to put them back in the car right after shopping, because I NEVER remember to grab them on my way out the door.
we just switched from paper towels to cloth, and really? it is not even a load of laundry a week. I kind of feel civilized.
I haven’t totally given up on paper towels, which I should, however I have stopped buying paper napkins. I have an assortment of cloth napkins that I was “saving for special occasions,” (like that happens very often) and I finally realized that I should pull them out and start using them everyday. We always use cloth hand towels in the kitchen and bathroom so it seemed obvious to use cloth for eating. Why does it take so long to figure these simple things out sometimes? I had a friend over a short time ago who joined us for pizza and when I handed him a cloth napkin he remarked that it was pretty fancy. It made me laugh since paying money for something disposable can seem pretty fancy since the money can really start to add up.
One last comment on plastic bags. I use mine to wrap up diapers for the trash. However, I do have a large bag that rolls up tiny and I keep in my purse for medium size purchases. At least I know my plastic bags are being reused.