Kicking The Paper Towel Habit!

I got this from some other site and I thought it was a great idea!

 

Kicking The Paper Towel Habit!

About 3 weeks ago I wrote about how it was one of my goals in the new year to do away with  paper towel waste in my home. Thanks to some inspiration from cleanmama.blogspot.com I decided to replace our paper towel holder (that was WAY too easy to make use of right next to the sink!) with some homemade cloths made from cut up flour sack towels. You can read the whole post HERE.

Surprisingly, the system has been working very well! Not too bad for one I sorta just made us as I went along. But with help from YOUR suggestions and comments, I have made a few tweaks that have me quite pleased with the whole project! Even the hubster and the kids are on board now (which was no easy fete!)….and I can literally count on one hand the number of paper towels I have used since this paperless quest began! Now that’s what I call “progress.”
The first tweak to the system I made was to add some hooks inside the cabinet doors under my sink where I keep the soiled towels. Now I can hang the towels that I’m done using, but not yet ready to wash, up to dry before I lump them all together. And since I live in such a DRY state…they are dry in no time…and I just toss them into the bucket.
I actually became so enamored of these little hooks (you know those 3M Command hooks that through some fancy stretch release technology voodoo are completely removable?)….I went a little hook crazy! They have hooks for EVERYTHING! (But that’s a post for another day. Soon. Promise.)

The second tweak to the “Throwing In The Paper Towel” System by Jillee (patent pending.  not really.) comes by way of a comment from Maiz C. In my initial post I said I was keeping a roll of paper towels around for those really icky messes. Well Maiz had the brilliant idea to keep a separate stash of rags (made up of retired cloth napkins, sheets, towels, t-shirts, etc) for wiping up those occasional messes that you want to throw into the trash instead of the laundry.

Here are a couple of examples of when the “rag bag” would come in handy:
When I cook chicken I almost always pat it dry first so whatever oil and/or seasonings I’m using will stick to the chicken better.  I really didn’t relish the idea of doing that with cloth and then holding on to it til I could wash it. ick. Here I’m getting rid of the extra moisture with the help of a couple pieces of a ratty old t-shirt.

And then there’s the times when I have just dirtied a pan but want to use that SAME pan to make something else without having to wash and dry it. The old kill two recipes with one pan trick!  Holding on to that cloth after using it to wipe out all that grease and gunk…no thank you.

This particular rag I used happened to be a part of an old sock with holes in it and no match!  

Nothing to be missed there!  Into the trash it goes!

And the last small change I made was swapping out the quite large basket of towels I keep on the kitchen counter for this smaller, more manageable sized one. I found I really didn’t need that many out at one time and it was taking up too much of my precious counter space! Besides, this other basket works perfectly for corralling my produce.  :-)  Win-Win.

After making these small tweaks to my paperless kitchen system…I hardly even notice the paper towels are gone! True story. Try it and see for yourself. :-)
And that is…..

ONE MORE “GOOD THING”………

I haven’t personally tried this yet….but thought it was such a smart idea I wanted to share it here in my “update”. It’s a comment left from Kelly about how she made her own “roll” of cloth towels! So smart!
Kelly said…
I too found your blog through Pinterest and love it! I recently decided to make my own laundry detergent, body wash, hand soap, and shaving gel. With such success, I started looking for other ways to trim/stretch my budget and make my home a litter greener at the same time. I was so excited to see this blog entry and I knew I wanted to try it right away! I used WalMart’s free online ordering and in-store pick up to get the 2 packs of flour sack towels last night. I brought them home and decided to cut each sheet into 6ths, similar to the size of regular paper towels. I also did this in hopes that I could wrap them around each other and continue to use my vertical paper towel holder that is currently on the counter. It worked! I layered one upon the other, overlapping by about 3-4 inches, rolled them up and then placed another 1/6 on top of the one before. Each ‘roll’ will hold about 24 1/6 towels as they are not long enough to make the distance around the ‘roll’ as it grows larger. They really do pull out like a regular paper towel roll! I took the remainder 1/6s and rolled them up into ‘rolls’ and have them stored for later use too. And, now I don’t have to spend the money to buy a basket or take up more counter space (I have such little to begin with!) I also used an old lingerie mesh laundry bag, attached by two removable sticky hooks, inside the cabinet below the sink to collect dirty towels to wash later.