Paper towels were actually one of the most recent things I converted to. It was kinda crazy how many rolls of paper towels we went through. At one stage, after attempting to reduce our waste for a few months, our bin was no longer full of food scraps or bits of plastic but instead, used-up paper towels!
I learnt that paper towels can be composted, which at the time I didn’t know (is that silly??), but once I converted to cloth napkins, I couldn’t un-see the waste of paper towels.
Of course, this isn’t for everyone. And I’m not going to preach to you, I mean, can anyone ever hear anyone, when they’re standing so high up on their soapbox?
But being a cheapo, what hooked me in was the idea of saving some dollars, and having a bunch of cloth napkins on hand can save money in the long run. Meaning more money for more burgers or soy lattes! But mostly burgers.
You might not have any “old” clothes on hand to make into rags (I didn’t either), so I bought a whole bunch of large tea towels and cut them into quarters. I placed them into a container and whenever there was a spill, I would pull one out and wiped that whole mess up.
Afterwards, I would put them in the washing basket, to be washed at the end of the week. Instead of going through rolls a week, we probably go through one roll every two months.
Yup! Let me be 100 here (apparently, that’s young people slang for truth bomb), my partner still uses paper towels on occasion, although he has slowly reduced his consumption. Ultimately, I want to say that you can’t convert everyone to using cloth napkins (or any lifestyle really) and that’s okay. This isn’t about how many people you can convert, it’s not a cult or cross-fit
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