Fast tip for saving money and energy
August 8, 2009 by Jennifer Chait
Filed under Around the House
What’s annoying are folks who use their towel once then toss it in the laundry. Not only is this terrible waste of water and energy but it’s gonna cost you. While estimates vary, it’s likely that one load of laundry in a front-loading washer will cost you up to 34¢ per load, which sounds small but adds up quickly. Not to mention unnecessary rewashing of towels over and over renders them more likely to die off early which means you’ll need to by more towels, buy more laundry soap, waste more time and so on.
All that said, I do get the ordeal of having a large family and all sorts of wet towels to contend with. It’s not THAT big a deal because if you actually showered, your towel is not getting dirty, BUT when someone (who will remain unnamed in my family’s case) leaves their towel on the floor, which is not so clean it gets tricky.
What to do…
Hang a peg rack rod. Such as one of the choices above from the container store. Then grab some multi-colored towels – i.e. white for dad, blue for mom, yellow for little Jim, and so on. Allot each family member a hook, a color, and now you’ll be able to tell who has which towel plus you’ll be able to find out which of you keeps tossing that towel onto the carpet.
A second idea is to snag towels that feature monogrammed names or for smaller kids pictures. I’ve tried the whole idea of hanging towels behind the door in bedrooms instead of in the bath, but that never seems to work out because someone always forgets to grab their towel then you have yelling going on, “Can someone bring me my towel!”
How do you help your family to remember which towel is which?
We do the hooks for the towels and it sure does help a TON on laundry!! Glad to see I am not the only one doing it
Sorry, I’d really annoy you. I cannot stand re-using towels. It seems filthy to me and really grosses me out. So I tell my family NOT to re-use their towels.
And I definitely won’t share my husband’s towel, like some people I know do. (Which, really, is kinda funny considering he’s my husband and we share, um… lots of things!
)
To each their own, I suppose.
We hook one on each side of the bathroom doors and we have our own side. I do think it is ridiculous and a waste of money to wash towel after towel after towel….esp. when you JUST got clean and you are clean.
Now if you use the towel and are cleaning in ‘crevices’ on your body…well then yeah I wash the towel. But usually we just have time to do a once-over to dry off, throw on clothes, and head off for the day.
We don’t share towels either. That would be more difficult to bite.
We just know in this house, with there only being 3 of us, that daughter’s towel hangs on the back of the door and ours hangs on the rack… we shower at different times of the day, me and dh, so as long as the towel is not wet, we re-use it.