Is there life after paper towels?

When I first suggested to Mike that we stop using paper towels, he was skeptical.  It's easy to see why--they're the go-to fix for almost any mess.  Tear one off to clean up a spill on the floor or use them to drain our beloved bacon.  It was a hard sell, harder in fact than any other green switch we made.  But really, it's so easy and inexpensive to replace your paper towels with more sustainable options. . .

• When frying, use a wire rack upside down on old, clean newspapers to soak up the grease.
• Use old t-shirts or worn towels cut into manageable pieces to soak up spills.  We've been doing this for so long that I start to do it at other people's houses without thinking.
• Use cloth napkins for smaller messes, as they soak up much more than a paper towel could ever hope to.
• Stop buying paper towels, or keep some on hand for emergency purposes only.  We often have a single roll on hand, but it is used over a period of months.
• Use napkins given to you by restaurants to do some of your dirtier work, like soaking up the bacon grease in the bottom of an iron skillet.  After all, they can't take those napkins back.
• Old flat and prefold cloth diapers are great for wiping up messes.  I have a favorite dust cloth that was once used to diaper my dad!

Yup, there's life after paper towels and it appears to be just as tidy.

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Brandy seeks self-sufficiency on a little lot in town, tending her most sincere pumpkin patch and borrowing the neighbor's clothesline.  She lives with her husband Mike and daughter Willow, both of whom love it when she knits for them.  Check out Brandy's blog and her etsy shop (full of hand-made napkins and other goodies to help you ditch the disposables.)

This post is part of our Drop the Disposables lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Drop the disposables: Cloth napkins Drop the disposables: Paper towel replacements Drop the disposables: Sanitary pads Drop the disposables: Diapers Drop the disposables: Grocery bags

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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