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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’d love to see a real study on the environmental impact of paper vs. purpose made reusable towels. Cotton is incredibly resource intensive to grow & then into fabric. Then you have to wash them, using gallons of water and pumping waste into the treatment system. “Pulp wood” farms actually sequester carbon. I can see it if you’re reusing rags from cloth that would otherwise be landfilled, but if you’re going out and buying [b]bespoke[/b] washable towels I suspect that this is a performant act.

I actually just did a quick search and couldn’t find anything that had any actual data, other than this Sierra Club calculation of water use, which says basically “it depends” and “it’s probably a wash.” If you’re using rags for the same way you use paper towels (reusing unwashed rags is a hygiene issue), you’re going to use a ton of water.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/2014/03/hey-mr-green-it-more-ecofriendly-use-rags-or-paper-towels[/quote]

I was just wondering the same thing. I know this is true of cotton shopping bags.  The British government did a study and number of times you have to reuse cotton bags to counter the environmental impacts of production (vs. disposable plastic) is astronomical, especially if you take into account that most plastic shopping bags are reused for bin liners, etc. In this case, where you're having to wash the rags after every use, I can't imagine the environmental impact is a net positive.  I personally use rags for some household cleaning tasks where I don't want the lint from paper towels, but I don't think I'm saving the planet. [/quote]

Lol, thanks for the laugh. I don’t think “bespoke” means what you think it means. And I take it you don’t have dish towels or bath towels? Because those are “bespoke” cotton rags as well. Maybe Costco will make giant bath sheet size paper towel rolls for you to use, surely that’s better for the environment than washing towels. [/quote]

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