help me break my paper towel habit

[Anonymous]

Yes, I use hand towels for drying produce. The reason I have a pile by dinner time is bc I don’t reuse hand towels, they get washed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you all use those reusable cloths for drying washed produce? At breakfast, lunch and dinner I am washing and drying fruits and vegetables, and using paper towels each time.

I use a ton of paper towel (though I'm not OP). It costs like $4 per load of laundry and I have very little storage space for a ton of reusable towels. In another world, I would totally switch my lifestyle to use fewer paper towels. I've housesat for people who barely use any, and it's pretty easy to adjust when you have free access to laundry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you all use those reusable cloths for drying washed produce? At breakfast, lunch and dinner I am washing and drying fruits and vegetables, and using paper towels each time.

Vileda sponge cloth pp here. No, I use sponge cloths only for surfaces. For hands / wiping dishes / drying fruits or veggies i use clean cotton kitchen towels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you all use those reusable cloths for drying washed produce? At breakfast, lunch and dinner I am washing and drying fruits and vegetables, and using paper towels each time.

Of course I use reusable cloths for fruits and veggies.

I use almost no paper towels, but I do use them for drying meat. That’s honestly about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you all use those reusable cloths for drying washed produce? At breakfast, lunch and dinner I am washing and drying fruits and vegetables, and using paper towels each time.

I dry produce in the salad spinner if appropriate, or I use a clean dish towel that then get hung up to dry and be used to dry hands. It’s totally clean, so I don’t see a reason to wash it.

[Anonymous]

Brawny makes Tear a Square paper towels so you can use only 1/4 of a towel for little dribbles

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Swedish dishcloths.

These. You can rinse them and let them dry, and toss them in the top rack of the dishwasher to clean them.

This is the brand that I have, but there are others. https://sweetgumhome.com/collections/frontpage

[Anonymous]

J@sus, the world is going to hell, people are dying and you greenies are worked up over your Costco paper towel usage. Unbelievable! Stop the virtual signaling and devoye your spare time to a serious vause!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you all use those reusable cloths for drying washed produce? At breakfast, lunch and dinner I am washing and drying fruits and vegetables, and using paper towels each time.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but I never dry produce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Swedish dishcloths.

These. You can rinse them and let them dry, and toss them in the top rack of the dishwasher to clean them.

This is the brand that I have, but there are others. https://sweetgumhome.com/collections/frontpage

Saw them at Costco today, pack of6 for 11.99

[Anonymous]

We reuse the paper towels.
Use for wiping hands dry after washing. Dry, reuse a couple of times. Then can be reused for wiping spills. Once it gets used on the floor or or another mess, then to the trash.
We've tried other methods to save such as regular towels.. but this is what works best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I use hand towels for drying produce. The reason I have a pile by dinner time is bc I don’t reuse hand towels, they get washed

PP who asked this question. Not challenging, just curious - at breakfast I wash berries and lightly pat dry, at lunch I wash and dry an apple, at dinner I wash and dry various veggies for roasting or stir frying, for snacks I wash and dry another fruit maybe a mango or cherry tomatoes or a cucumber. do you keep one towel set aside each day for produce drying, in addition to the towel you are using for the cleaning purposes in OP’s question?

I feel like it would constantly be a challenging to enforce my family keeping the produce towel separate from the cleaning towel. And then at least 2 towels a day to wash, in my house likely more like 3 bc one towel could not serve to replace a day’s worth of paper towel usage in my house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I use hand towels for drying produce. The reason I have a pile by dinner time is bc I don’t reuse hand towels, they get washed

PP who asked this question. Not challenging, just curious - at breakfast I wash berries and lightly pat dry, at lunch I wash and dry an apple, at dinner I wash and dry various veggies for roasting or stir frying, for snacks I wash and dry another fruit maybe a mango or cherry tomatoes or a cucumber. do you keep one towel set aside each day for produce drying, in addition to the towel you are using for the cleaning purposes in OP’s question?

I feel like it would constantly be a challenging to enforce my family keeping the produce towel separate from the cleaning towel. And then at least 2 towels a day to wash, in my house likely more like 3 bc one towel could not serve to replace a day’s worth of paper towel usage in my house.

I posted above but 2-3 hand towels a day is my norm. I think it is absurd not to reuse them a few times. I have a separate one for drying stuff as opposed to hands.

But washing a few hand towels per day is really nothing. A load of laundry per week max. I throw them in with whatever else. The washer cleans things, I don’t fuss about how clean things are beforehand. That seems weird to me but DCUM has a lot of hang ups about things that don’t bother me.

[Anonymous]

We use a dish cloth for wiping our hands after washing them in the sink.

For countertop spills, we use sponges and rinse them. They can be disinfected in about 30 seconds in the microwave when they start to feel icky. If I must use a paper towel because the stuff feels particularly icky, I'll tear off the smallest size possible from a corner and use that.

For floor spills, I reuse pieces of paper, or tissue paper, or brown paper that come into the house with mail, or purchases that used some type of paper for packing. Just wet it first--it feels like a slightly rough paper towel but does the trick. Then throw in the compost bin.

We are just about to finish the last package of paper towels I bought--from Costco during the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Cleaning more doesn't make you cleaner. It means you are messy as hell.