Once you start the compost pile, toss the paper towels in it.

And do the earth a favor and buy recycled-paper paper towels. "Green Forest" and "Seventh Generation" are two brand names I'm familiar with. They even have them at my corner grocery (and it's not fancy at all). I prefer the "Green Forest" but you can buy a roll of each and see which you like better.

Good idea! I didn't know there were recycled paper towels. I'll keep an eye out for those. Thanks! Christy

Marcal makes recycled paper towels too. I compost the majority of my used paper towels. I gave up trying to get my DH to stop using them so the least I can do is buy recycled and compost them.

:)
Dee

We don't use paper towels much. A roll lasts a long time in our house. I use used paper towels to line my plant pots to keep soil from leaking out.
I cut up old bath towels, hem them and use them as kitchen towels. We use old cotton t-shirts as rags. Old cloth diapers make excellent rags. I change them very often so they don't smell.

Old cloth diapers are great! I use them for so many things - but my kids are now teenagers and I can't find the same kind of cotton ones I used with them - they're some kind of weave/woven type now.

I had a parent ask me to give her one so her kid could use it for his saxophone or trumpet or whatever instrument he played. I told her she could *borrow* it until she found some of her own, lol. I hold on to my old ones like gold!

:)
Dee

Yup, love the old rags. I have a whole drawer full. I don't use many paper towels, but I've found that when I do use them, I don't have to use a whole sheet. I just cut them in half on the roll. Works great.

Kevin

Can't you wean yourself off paper towels altogether? We don't buy them at all. We just use a proper terry towel which hangs on the stove front, so dries fast and definitley does not smell. It gets washed regularly.We also use those 'miracle fibre ' cloths for spills which don't require any cleaning product other than water, even for mopping grease. Again, they get washed regularly. Remember the mantra? 'Refuse, reuse, recyle'. Recycling is down at third place in the list.

I remember when people didn't use them, and I'm not quite ancient. My mother always had an assortment of linens in the kitchen. There was a cloth for washing the dishes and yet another for wiping up counters. There was a tea towel one kept away from tea, for fear of stains and another one we could use on anything. A hand towel in the kitchen. Old rags for use in a mop head. Cloth napkins. Newspapers for washing windows. I was just thinking of this the other day, before I read this thread. People survived quite well , thank you, before paper towels became common-use. I don't remember any of my mother's linens looking nasty, nor smelling it.

I have returned to using cloth napkins, and rags for many of my chores, and when I do buy paper towels, I buy Green forest. Sponges, even synthetic ones, and those synthetic reuseable cloths get a lot more mileage than paper in my house.

I believe the reason all these disposable products are so popular is because everyone is so terrified of germs and the industry keeps feeding that fear. Use it once, toss and get rid of the germs.

Kevin

I think you're right, Kevin. Along with using cloth towels and sponges, remember when Mom's cleaning arsenal consisted of bleach, ammonia, baking soda and Comet? Nothing antibacterial was even thought of, and you know, most of us made it to adulthood. I don't knowingly let antibacterial anything in my house, I prefer to rely on my immune system.

remember when Mom's cleaning arsenal consisted of bleach, ammonia, baking soda and Comet? Nothing antibacterial was even thought of, and you know, most of us made it to adulthood. I don't knowingly let antibacterial anything in my house

If you're using bleach, ammonia, baking soda, etc., you are using disinfectants/antibacterials. People thought of it; they were just less paranoid about it than they are now. And the technology did not exist to impregnate almost anything and everything (countertops, toys, appliances) with antibacterial ingredients, so it wasn't done.

I think we need to be careful about denouncing combinations of synthetic chemicals as unilaterally "bad" and accepting naturally-occuring substances as unilaterally "good". I have a friend who used to promote certain vitamin supplements as not harmful because they were "all-natural". My observation was that plutonium was "all-natural", too, but people didn't tout its health benefits. :-) I also know that borax is not toxic to humans in amounts in which it is used regularly, but that it does have a cumulative effect on groundwater and certain animals, so it's not completely safe, either. We are much better off not using so much of anything.

That's true.

It still amazes me at how many news programs do these stories about various germs on every surface we touch. Combine that with all the antibacterial products available, the non-stop marketing of these products, the gardening chemicals available and the marketing of these which seems to encourage killing just about every "pesky insect" outside and we seem to have created a society of very paranoid and ignorant people indeed.

K

Trying to mass exterminate billions of bacteria that you can't even see, bacteria that divide hundreds of times a minute even, is a completely futile battle. The world is full of bacteria and so are we.

However, the potentially dangerous bacteria do not appear out of nowhere, they need a source. Nor do any bacteria live in large numbers all over the house, they need moisture and food to remain alive, thus a properly cleaned and dried kitchen counter or utensil is not the bacteria party that adverts suggest. Also, the bacteria count on walls, floors and ordinary household items is going to be very low because these places are not a good environment for them. Getting e.coli to live on a kitchen floor which is completely dry 99% of the time is like trying to grow grass in the Sahara.

The bacteria which can cause food poisoning are best prevented by cooking food properly and always consuming the freshest food possible, because in fact food poisoning is caused by bacteria from bad food, not bacteria that magically appear all over your kitchen with no obvious source and *then* contaminate the food. That idea is completely the wrong way around.

"If you're using bleach, ammonia, baking soda, etc., you are using disinfectants/antibacterials. People thought of it; they were just less paranoid about it than they are now. And the technology did not exist to impregnate almost anything and everything (countertops, toys, appliances) with antibacterial ingredients, so it wasn't done."

Point well taken. I should have said I don't use anything labeled "antibacterial" just because the marketing reps say I need to. The ad that makes me NUTS is the one where she splashes spaghetti sauce from the pot onto the counter. Grandma rushes in with the antibacterial wipes to mop it up. If you sauce is that toxic, you probably shouldn't be eating it. Not to mention the use-once-and-toss mentality of disposables.

Here's a quick way to kill the germs and the smells without chemicals. Microwave damp sponges and clothes for about 2-3 minutes.

Don't microwave dry though:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6293735.stm

Here is a link that might be useful: Microwaves turn kitchen cloths into germ killers

This thread got me thinking about teatowels. Why are they labelled cold wash only these days? Mine don't seem as clean as they used to be when they got a hot wash. Is it because I use an environmentally friendly low-allergy washing powder rather than the latest enzyme coldwash product?

I don't use a lot of paper towels, but I also agree that cloths can get a kind of stale smell. I'm not sure it's from being left to dry, I suspect it's actually from staying wet for too long.

I wash plates and clean the kitchen/bathroom with plastic foam sponges, the type with a block of foam and a scratchy pad attached. They don't last forever, but they outlast paper towels by a long way, and when worn out they can be saved up and used like disposables for really grimy cleaning tasks. The nice thing is that they're plastic, so easily rinsed clean and they dry quickly too. I've never had a bad smell from any of them.

I clean other things like the TV screen and house plants with microfibre cloths. They can clean the whole room and then be hand washed in the sink. I've had the same cloths for a couple of years now.

hi macbirch, I think that the dyes used now are cheaper and are not set properly so if you wash in hot water the colours can run or fade and they say to wash in cold water to cover themselves. If my teatowels need it I'll just give them a hot soak before washing but if they arent stained I just wash in cold water.

This thread has really got me thinking too, someone mentioned using old rags for mops and since my sponge mop head is just about to start falling apart Im going to try wrapping a wrag around it and see how it works!

"I should have said I don't use anything labeled "antibacterial" "

I knew what you meant aok, youre talking about products with things added like triclosan which is just going over the top. It is believed that these things only kill the weaker bacterias anyway, so the stronger ones may become resistant to these things from constant exposure.

I agree kevin about the ads too, they really irritate me. every little spill and some super efficient housewife is rushing for a paper towel to save the day and get rid of those nasty germs forever. Im glad to see Im not the only one who still uses tea towels and sponges and mop :)

Continuing the peeve about ads, the ones that really get me are the ones for air fresheners. You know, the "kills odor causing bacteria in the air" ones. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know of any stinky bacteria floating around that need killing. If you have a stinky house get rid of the dead cat under the sofa. It's miraculous how your house will suddenly smell better. Grrrrrrrrrrr!!

Kevin

About labeling things like tea towels as cold wash........look at the material from which they are made. Are they partially synthetic, and need to be treated like a permanent press to dry without wrinkles? I use mostly linen for tea towels, and it's precious hard to get in the USA. I inherited a stash of them from my mother's closets, and the new ones I'd buy each time I went to England to visit my kids, from Ireland of course. These are not blends, but 100% linen and take a hot wash, as do my 100% cotton cloths....but synthetic blends seem to be sneaking into once traditionally cotton and linen items. It could be because they're dyed, as well?

I love those microfibre cloths. (The ones I use can be machine washed at 95C/200F!) I must admit I use paper towels for some things too and I'd been wondering lately if I should try composting them.

We have a few linen and mostly cotton teatowels. I don't think I've ever seen synthetic ones. May well be cheaper dyes I think.

LOL Kevin. All the things the marketing people tell us we need that we never used to need!

Also like the microfibre towels - got a bunch of the very thick ones at Goodwill (the kind for washing cars.) they are fantastic. I've heard people say you can only wash microfibre with microfibre, but I just put these in with the rest of the wash and they come out great.

We don't use paper towels much, but we put the used one into the worm compost - the worms love paper - especially cardboard egg cartons. Munch munch.

Install towel hangers and hang the towel to dry everytime you use it. Change them daily. The real culprit is paper diapers. If everyone would use cloth diapers this would save tons of trees and landfill space.

Another culprit is kleenex tissue. I grew up with handkerchiefs which we would wash each night. Or, a batch could be soaked in cold salt water and then washed regularly.

Handkerchiefs were actually an enjoyable means of self expression. There were certain kinds for men, bandanna types for work, frilly ones for girls, little animals embroidered for children, knockout dressy ones, etc.

"The real culprit is paper diapers. If everyone would use cloth diapers this would save tons of trees and landfill space."

I agree with you about the landfill space (and the groundwater contamination, holy s***!). But there is precious little paper in disposable diapers today -- they're pretty much entirely plastic and polymer gel. The material in question now is petroleum, which of course we don't have any too much of to waste either.

That polymer gel, btw, can absorb something like 500 times its volume in water, so imagine how the dipes keep swelling even in the landfill.

Christy, my mom always had cloth towels in the kitchen when I was growing up and her big rule on pain of DEATH!!! was that the hand towel only be touched with freshly washed hands. That was the towel that stayed hanging in the kitchen all day or sometimes even two and it never stunk or got grimy because of her rule (which I have adopted).

Rags and towels used to wipe things don't usually get reused, just chucked in the laundry after one use.

The smell is not from being wet and then drying, it's from the bacteria that breed while a cloth is moist and then die when it dries out. If you keep your cloths either clean of debris, or quickly dried out, you won't have an odor or a germ issue.

Kristin

"...my mom always had cloth towels in the kitchen when I was growing up and her big rule on pain of DEATH!!! was that the hand towel only be touched with freshly washed hands...."

Ah, Kristin, I wish I could get your mom to work on my husband, lol! I have been asking him for 25 years to clean his hands before he uses the towel. He is a fabulous cook, but an extremely sloppy one.

Do you know how many times I have washed my hands, and have gone to dry them on the towel, only to wipe spaghetti sauce all over them?! Grrrr!! He just uses the towel to wipe his dirty hands, not dry off his washed hands.

The real dilemma comes in because I don't want to yell at him too much because I'm happy he's using the cloth towel instead of a whole roll of paper ones, lol!

:)
Dee

One towel for each of you? His and Hers colors?

Kristin

So many images! Especially the linen kitchen towels - in my grandmother's case even linen bath towels, which I hated. And there was a definite line between tea towels and hand towels. All kitchen towels were hung by the (coal burning) kitchen stove on a multi-arm towel rack where they dried in no time. For air fresheners - if she couldn't get a cone of incense, she simply tied a 6 inch length of cotton twine to a cast iron curlicue on the stove and lit it. She would gently blow out the flame so that the string continued to burn. The bit of smoke it made was not at all unpleasant and got rid of whatever odor she didn't want hanging around.
As for the "paper" diapers, they were pretty bad in the early '50's when my son was born. The cloth ones were a pain in the backside, but they didn't irritate him. In fact, it occured to me even then that if "paper" diapers were used for every baby in the country, they would have to be burned to keep from having mountains of used "paper" diapers in every city from coast to coast! YUK!! And yes, I hung on to my stash of cloth diapers until they were transparent!

Thanks for all of the advice. I am still using paper towels, but did put in a hand drying towel and dish drying towel. And wash them regularly, I still hate that smell of a dried cloth :) I haven't gotten the compost bin yet, I plan on getting one for kitchen scraps, and one for outside. They're a bit pricey, so I'm bargain shopping right now. I also purchased microfiber cloths, used with just water. But (tsmith) my biggest change is that I switched to cloth diapers. I had no idea that they had evolved so much since I was a kid! I had no clue what an impact they make in the landfill, can't believe I didn't think of it before. So thanks folks! Christy

I bought a microfiber cloth the other day, and I kind of don't know what to do with it, lol! I did some dusting with it (and I hardly EVER dust, lol!), but to be honest, I can't stand the feel of the cloth. Maybe it's just that my skin is horribly dry, but the cloth sticks to my hands and gives me the heebie-jeebies. I guess it's just a matter of getting used to it. I'd really like to use it to clean the floors, if I could find a mop-type thinig to attach it to. Thinking of buying a Swiffer-type thing and using the microfiber cloth.

BTW, Kristin, even if I tried his and her towels, my DH would just use both of them anyway, lol! Oh well, like I said, I don't want to discourage him from using the cloth and encourage him to use paper towels (especially since he will easily tear off 3 when he really only needs a half!) so I guess I have to suck it up and deal with it. Not a bad trade-off, really. After all, this is a minor issue - picking your battles and all that. My big battle will be persuading him to go solar!

:)
Dee

Dee

I know what you mean about these type of fabrics feeling creepy. There are certain synthetic fabrics I just can't stand to touch. It's almost like they try to attach to your skin or something. I can't stand them. Give me the old, cotton rag any day.

From what I've heard though, these microfibers do a great job of cleaning.

Kevin

I haven't gotten the compost bin yet, I plan on getting one for kitchen scraps, and one for outside. They're a bit pricey, so I'm bargain shopping right now.

Be sure to contact your local recycling agency. Ours had a deal in which they sold a limited number of upright composters and little buckets (for the kitchen) for about $30. U pick up, u assemble, but it was easy to do and it's been working fine for me.

The local recyclers also are going to collect compostable material starting this fall (IIRC). Of course, I won't be participating because I compost my own, but putting that out with the weekly recyclables might be a good alternative for you.

Thanks for the tip, I looked into it. Unfortunately I didn't find anything as of yet. Lucky you :) Christy

I use cloth towels and I wash them in Garden Len's laundry detergent. I save money as well as avoid waste.

Marshall

For kitchen scraps, look for children's sand buckets w/lids at the Dollar Store. I got two & it's the best 2 bucks I ever spent.

We use very few paper towels, but the ones we do use are the brown kraft tri-folds like you would find in a dispenser in a public bathroom. I purchased the dispenser for $17 and the initial case of 3000 towels for $24 at a janitor supply store. The current case of towels was purchased in July of last year; and is still well over half full. The brown kraft towels are made from unbleached paper - fewer dioxins in the environment; and they break down rapidly in even a cold compost pile.

I buy a new package of 12 cotton "bar mop" towels each spring - right before my family all comes out for a big dinner; that way they look nice. By the next spring, they are so disreputable looking (I don't like chlorine bleach) that they are relegated to being used only during canning season. The next spring, looking even worse after spaghetti sauce and grape juice canning, they are relegated to being the floor mopping, wiping muddy dog feet, cat yak towels. They eventually end up in the compost pile - usually in bits and pieces.