I just haven’t had much to say this week. Today is Monday in our family, Ed has gone back to work after his Thursday-Friday weekend.
Someone asked me the other day how we “survive” without paper towels. Heh. It’s honestly not a hardship and I know of lot of my regular readers are also either fully or mostly paper-free in the kitchen (or, well, paper towels aren’t just for the kitchen, are they?).
I only use paper towels for pet messes. I use about one roll every 3-5 weeks-ish (since Handy is getting old, she throws up more, one roll used to last me two months, easily).
On top of my microwave I have two baskets, one filled with hand-knitted wash cloths. The other is filled with larger cloths, a combination of small towels, cloth diapers and a couple of old receiving blankets. Most of these things have been in use in my home, in one way or another, for at least five years and some of them as much as ten. I have a couple of wash cloths that I knitted when I was first learning to knit, when Becca was a tiny infant. I have two little kitchen towels that I bought when I was married to my ex-husband and that was… a really long time ago. I use these towels for all the things you would use paper towels for, all my household cleaning, everything (except cat barf). I have a small plastic trash can in the kitchen where I toss them when they’re dirty (I hang them over the side or over the edge of the sink if they’re wet, I need to get a little towel rack or something). And then I throw them in the wash when I’m doing laundry.
It isn’t hard. It doesn’t add any time or effort to my week except perhaps a few extra minutes in folding time when I’m already folding the rest of the laundry, but really, sometimes I don’t even fold them, I just cram them in the baskets all messy-like. When I look at my baskets of colorful rags and towels, I like to think of all the paper towels they replaced. Sweet.
I sometimes read on blogs or forums that a woman’s husband has been reluctant or flat-out refused to switch to cloth from paper. Wtf kind of crazy is that?
The point is that it’s easy to be paper towel-free, better for the world, better for your wallet. Whee.
/psa
July 24th, 2010 on 2:44 pm
We rarely have any paper towels on hand. Every now and then Brett buys a roll but we use cloth napkins and rags. I buy my napkins on clearance at the thrift store and refresh ‘em every now and then. Only problem is I am currently behind on laundry but honestly, not a hardship here either.
July 24th, 2010 on 3:09 pm
*nod nod* Usually when I’m behind on laundry, our rags and towels are the least of our problems anyway. I go on dishcloth knitting crazes every once in a while and could probably go three weeks without washing (if I didn’t mind the pile of dirty ones bein’ stinky).
July 24th, 2010 on 6:35 pm
We use knit dishcloths, too. I still have and use the one that I made when I learned to knit! Sadly, we’re using MORE paper towels these days because of The Beast and her “accidents.” Ugh.
July 24th, 2010 on 6:47 pm
Yeah, if I had a puppy, I’d be a paper towel using fool, too. She won’t have so many accidents forever, though :)
July 24th, 2010 on 6:35 pm
We have used cloth pretty much exclusively for … hmm … two or three years, I think. I have a little blue bucket beside the sink, and we put towels, washcloths and table napkins in it. I usually have a roll paper towels around in case we’re, say, frying latkes or something, but I find cloth easier than dealing with a roll of paper towels, particularly when I need to clean up a mess in a hurry. People sometimes react like we’re eschewing electricity or something …
July 24th, 2010 on 6:49 pm
Lol, that’s what makes me laugh, the idea that using cloth is somehow so crazy.
July 25th, 2010 on 5:27 am
I don’t get what people are using all these paper towels *for*?
Messes in the kitchen? Isn’t that what dishtowels & dishclothes are for? huh?
I still buy paper towels, but I keep them in the cleaning cupboard, so I forget they’re there.
Mostly we use them for:
- cleaning around the toilet seat
- cleaning the pellet stove window (obviously not in summer)
- draining greasy food.
and honestly, when you take in the “i forget” factor, I’m usually draining greasy food on flyers or newspaper. (That makes it sound liek we have grease-tastic food daily, but no.)
July 25th, 2010 on 11:06 am
Yeah, I don’t know. We did used to hang out with a family we haven’t seen in a few years, but I remember being sort of stunned by her casual use of one-use disposable products. She went through zip-locs like they were free. And she used paper towels for *everything.* I watched her feed the kids a snack once, some cheese, crackers, fruit and juice in sippy cups. She must have used at least 6 paper towels to clean up during/after the snack. And every time she reached for the roll, she’d tear off two. A cloth towel works so much better anyway, right? *shrug*
July 27th, 2010 on 10:04 pm
I don’t know when it was we stopped using paper towels, it’s not a big deal here. We tend to use the dish towels for everything in the kitchen. I’ve started using the receiving blankets that I saved from when the kids were babies. They work well, forall kinds of things. (puppy pee included!) The knitted dishcloths are sounding pretty cool. Would you be willing to knit some for sale? My mom LOVES them. She buys them at the craft fairs, and I’m thinking I should get a few myself. :)
July 27th, 2010 on 10:19 pm
Sure thing, Maria! I like the knitted dishcloths because they wear like IRON, they scrub well but aren’t rough, I wash and dry them every week and the only time they fall apart is when something weird happens, like a certain man doesn’t notice one fell down the drain and turns on the garbage disposal (and actually, we still use it, it’s got a couple of slowly growing holes, hahaha). I’ve seriously had some of them as long as Becca’s been alive.