Paper Towl(less)

Paper towels were something I had never even thought of until recently. They are such a staple of American life that they are practically and after though. You always know they are so wasteful but, I mean, who doesn't have paper towels? Me, that's who. I looked on Etsy for the cloth paper towels and found some. They were very cute and pretty expensive for something that's going to be used to clean up mashed banana and the macaroni my daughter threw against the wall. Plus they have to be snapped back together and put back on the roll which takes time. I'm not really looking to invest a lot of time in my non-paper towel maintenance. Instead I went out at back to school time and bought a whole bunch of cheap white dorm style wash clothes and now we use those instead. Easy peasy. Less waste, more efficient.

I had a little problem with mildew at first because I was throwing all of our rags in a dedicates bag for later washing but I found that if I lay the wet rags on the counter and let them dry it's not a problem. They are better for cleaning up most messes anyway. They were so cheap I don't feel too bad about throwing one away if it gets too gross but that takes a while. I also have some colored ones that I use specifically for the bathroom, and some softer ones that I use specifically for post baby meal clean up (you know, on day's when I don't have to just throw her in the bathtub) So there you go, paperless towels.


In the interest of full disclosure, I still do keep a roll of paper towels around. We have an 19 year old cat and some messes are just too gross to clean up with something you are going to keep. That's really the only thing we use them for anymore though.