Reduce Paper Towel Usage
April 14, 2009 by Peggy Rowland
Filed under Home & Living
One thing you can do to change your habits in honor of Earth Day is to take a long, hard look at your paper towel usage.
Sure, paper towels can be handy for things like cleaning up kitty vomit or patting the grease off the top of bacon, but do you really have to use them for every little mess?
I cut down on my paper towel usage by following a few easy routines:
• Dry your hands with a clean towel that you reserve for that purpose: a hand towel in the kitchen. You may wish to buy some different ones for this purpose so they can be identified as hand towels for the kitchen, not for cleaning. I found some cream-colored organic dish towels from Target for this purpose.
• Clean messes with a dish towel. Replace it daily (or more often if needed) to reduce the spread of germs.
• If you’re cleaning something particularly gross, go ahead and use a paper towel if that makes you feel better. Or just use a cloth towel once.
If you follow those tips, you may be able to cut your paper towel usage down to just one roll or less a month! Lots of folks don’t use any paper towels at all.
Imagine the money and trees you’ll save.
Last May, I hosted a Paper Towel Challenge at Tree Hugging Family. Visit for guidance on how to drastically lower your paper towel habit.
Best Green Home Tips offers some more green thoughts on cleaning with cloth towels versus paper.
How many rolls of paper towels do you use per month?
(Image via Etsy)
We rarely use paper towels at home. Grease from bacon and ground beef is the majority of the use (about once a week each, and maybe 3-5 towels each time). We bought a case of 12 rolls of paper towels before we moved to Spain in 2004…..we lived there 19months, and then lived in GA from Dec 05 until last month, when I used the last roll from that pack of 12. So…..from May 2004-March 2009, we used a total of 12 rolls of paper towels.
We have about 15 dish towels. 3 are designated for clean dishes only (the dishwasher doesn’t dry them well, and these towels are dark green). 4 are designated as hand only towels (they are decorative compared to the others), and the rest are for cleaning up spills, messes (which we have lots of with a 3yr old here), and general kitchen cleaning purposes. Our laundry room is attached to the kitchen, so its convenient to just drop them in the washer!
I love paper towels for what we need them for, but we don’t need them for much!