apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I think giving up paper towels is a great idea, but I can't bring myself to do it completely. Emily of EmilyStyle.com gave up paper towels years ago and lives quite contently cleaning up minor spills with dishtowels.

Our Trader Joe's sells some great, high absorbent dish towels that I've been meaning to try. Instead of giving paper towels up cold, being mindful about how many paper towels you go through and trying to reduce that amount is important.

We have switched over to using cloth napkins for meals. But for the days when you knock over a can of paint, or lube your bike chain inside, disposable paper towels seem to be appropriate.

i don't buy paper towels, or disposable napkins either, for at least a decade now. i too started out of thriftiness like you, and am also thrilled to not be contributing to the waste problem. plus they use bleach and other nasty things on the environment to make paper towels, not to mention the trees... please won't someone think of the trees!?!
i buy old/vintage cloth napkins and towels that cost mere pennies a piece, and a few in each load take up no room in the wash. but bless her, my ma always brings a roll over with her when she comes to visit. so somehow i always have a few on hand for guests who are otherwise grossed out by using 'used' napkins. people are funny.
i use junk mail newsprint to do glass though because it leaves no lint behind.

We are trying to cut out paper towels completely. Right now we have one roll on hand for messes that our pets might happen to make. Otherwise we use rags made from my husband's old undershirts. It's a great way to recycle a clothing item that might otherwise go to the trash.

I'm cutting down. A lot. However, with a kitten in the apartment I'm hesitant to nix them completely... She's been accident free thus far, but you never know, and I'd rather have a roll tucked away somewhere to scoop up a mess and toss.

Ditto. I have dramatically reduced the amount of paper towels I use, replacing them with microfibre cloths. I still want paper towels for pet messes and particularly filthy tasks that would result in a towel being thrown out.

We buy them either. We may use the occasional one or two sheet sample we get from time to time but that's it. We use towels and dish cloths in the kitchen. We use old cloth diapers for cleaning rags for everything from cleaning windows to dusting to cleaning the bathrooms. Just wash and reuse.

We use cloth napkins in place of disposable ones as well. They are easy to make too or if you can't sew, just pick some up from yard sales and thrift stores.

I use paper towels for the occasional pet mess on the kitchen floor.

I bought a ton of dish cloths from Ikea (the inexpensive blue and white ones - I think six in a package for $3.99). So, whenever there's a spill . . . . . And when the dish cloths get really stained, I use them as shop rags.

I bought 10 extra dishtowels and 20 cloth napkins last week. Right now I do laundry once/week in the apartment laundry room, so I don't have high hopes for giving up paper completely, but I'm moving to an apartment with a washer/dryer next month so I'm going to attempt not buying paper towels or napkins from then on. Surprisingly, my boyfriend is on board - for the money saving aspect of the experiment.

There are two sides to the coin when it comes to waste. If you don't use paper towels but use cloth towels, you use more laundry soap and water to wash them, especially if you cook a lot and have to use a cloth towel or rag only once because you've wiped up after dealing with raw meat or other food for which cross contamination is an issue. The same goes for sanitizing reusable cloths used for cleaning up the toilet area.

In the end, I'm not sure that the waste produced by the need to wash and sanitize cloth items saves you much over using the odd paper towel.

I use paper towels to clean up after chicken when it touches work surfaces, to mop up oil (as I don't have hot water washing), and to clean the bathroom. I don't use many, but I think it's often better to use paper towels.

I use paper towels for "patting" meat dry before I cook it, and for draining bacon. I go through one roll every couple of months because I don't cook meat more than a once or twice a week. I also use cotton make-up pads and rubbing alcohol to clean the toilet surface and sink handles. I've tried using "bathroom only" cloths but that just didn't work for me.

I agree with Orchid64- I used to work at a childcare center where we didn't use paper towels. A staff member had to do at least one load of wash per day of just dish towels and bibs. It seemed pretty counterproductive to me.

yelch... meat on the counter... that's another reason cloth will never fully replace paper in my house.

We have been paper towel and Kleenex free for about a year. I found that when I had them in the house I would use them out of convenience even when I was trying to reduce waste. If something gross happens like the dog throws up or something I just get one of the older cloths made from ripped up old clothes and throw it away after wiping the mess. We are a vegan household so we don't have the same kitchen issues as others, but so far it's been working great.

I would much rather use a towel than paper so, the switch seemed easy to me. For guests? I place kitchen towels (a couple of them) around the kitchen so they're easy to get at. I find this curbs my guests from even asking for paper towels because they can easily see where else to dry their hands.

Somehow, that doesn't seam sanitary.

I've done without for years, and never missed them. I switched less out of conscientiousness and more just because I prefer cloth, it somehow seems fancier :-).

I totally rely on something I bought called a barkeepers friend: they are plain white cloths made of a rough and absorbent terry cloth. I got them at Bed Bath and Beyond. Years later they are in various states of stained, but perfect for any serious mess. For the rest, it is cloth napkins and pretty, pretty dish towels.

Haven't had paper towels in the house for years. IT was purely and environmental thing fro me in the beginning but I also enjoy the saving of a little cash too.

As for the poster who mentioned the concern over having to wash and that being an issue environmentally -

I wash all my clothes and rags in Charlies Soap http://charliesoap.com/products.asp and I line dry all of my clothes. The sun is an AMAZING disinfectant and a great way to bleach out stains. I think going the rag route is still a better deal environementally given that.

For anyone who has had a hard time making the switch, honestly, I have not missed paper towels in the slightest.

While cleaning up pet feces or vomit is quite gross, I don't see why you cannot deposit solids into the toilet and then machine wash a rag as opposed to using a paper towel? I do this every day. My son soiled his underpants regularly while in the process of learning to use the toilet and I didn't throw his underwear away! It's not just about preventing the waste that paper towels add to your personal or city garbage... if EVERYONE used a lot less or cut them out entirely, think of the savings of trees, of energy/waste/pollution generated in manufacturing. I'm guessing we each have enough fabric to all make rags for quite sometime before needing to generate a "new" rag.

i use paper towels...=( but my reasoning is because we have a 3 year old who loves to make messes and what about washing soiled clothing...is that really sanitary? i know when you wash it...it gets clean, but to me it seems as though there would be parts that lingered in the machine....ANYONE HAVE INPUT ON THIS?

Since I moved out of my parents' house three years ago I haven't bought a single roll, and I rarely encounter a mess makes me wish for a paper towel. (Exceptions are when I kill things like roaches, which get scooped up in a old WalMart bag or swept out the back door.)

Guests are always shocked when they ask for napkins and get directed to a drawer with a pile of neatly folded cloth napkins, and they usually come to me confused because they can't find any in there.

I think I go through one roll every 2-3 months. Mostly to clean up gross things I don't want in my washing machine with my clothes on a tea towel (pet messes, oil messes, paint, dead bugs, etc.). I was watching that show Wasted on PlanetGreen and they had one family that spent $40 a month on paper towels. ?!?! Amazing...