Un-paper Towels?

[chely7425]

So, I am trying to venture more and more into healthier/more eco friendly things around the home.. we do cloth diapers, cloth wipes and I use mama cloth but I am not brave enough for family cloth. Unpaper towels on the other hand I think I could totally do!! Where do you get them? How do they work? Any thoughts?

[AllyRae]

We just use regular ole dishrags. We have a huge pile of them and we use them to clean spills and dry dishes. We get them from Target in the kitchen towels aisle.

Is it the trend to put "un" in front of everything--I've seen unschooling, unjobbing, and now un-paper toweling. Too funny. :

[Beauchamp]

I got a few packs of microfiber dish cloths (12"x12") at Ross, a discount-type store like Marshalls, TJ Maxx, etc. They hold a lot of water and squeeze quite dry. I can rinse and reuse them for cleaning jobs, as opposed to cotton, which seems to hold the dirt and lots of water. I know not everyone is wild about synthetic fabrics, but these do the job for countertops and little kitchen clean ups. We keep a basket with some designated for kitchen cleaning, and another basket for cleaning up my daughter's hands, face, booster seat after eating. (She is quite messy.)

I do keep a roll of paper towels out, which my husband uses more than I'd like, but oh well. Mostly I keep them for my cast iron pans.

[chely7425]

I did some googling and found an ADORABLE cloth towel "house"... DH is always as on board for things that change our routine so I need something he can still, like... grab use like he does the roll of paper towels. How many rags do you guys have and how often do you wash them?

[karika]

We did EC, so the prefolds never had poop on them. I use them for draining bacon on (or I did, I gave up mammals a few weeks ago). We also have a lot of kitchen sponges. we have one for counter, one for dishes that are dairy or gluten contaminated (for prewashing prior to loading in DW.) and I have one I use when I hand wash my dishes or wash my vegi/ fruit only cutting board. We wash them in the washing machine in hot water with the other towels and dry them in the dryer. I recommend using flats and prefolds and receiving blankets if you aren't going to need them anymore.

[busymama77]

I found a set of 4 microfiber cloths at TJMAxx for $4 that we use for dishwashing and wiping the counter. But for meal time, we use those thin washcloths that can be found at Target or Marhshall's/TJMaxx in a bundle for like $5. We've been using them for almost a year and they've held up really well. I wash them once a week.

[chely7425]

We have a lot of prefolds but they are very heavily used Plus we don't EC so I don't know how I would (or how DH would feel) about using them for more than cleaning if that makes sense!

[JessicaS]

I use rags I cut from old tshirts a lot, I also have dish towels and microfiber cloths.


It is also nice to have a cooling rack type of thing to replace paper towels that one might use to put greasy things on

[Drummer's Wife]

I've been wanting to order these:

Reusable Eco Friendly Snapping Paper towels

[chely7425]

Those are so cute!!!!

[JamieCatheryn]

Washrags and dishcloths and cloth napkins in our house. About 8 dishcloths, I think more than that in old washcloths...no idea how many are left really. Big spills I go for the hand towels or bath towels.

[crunchy_mommy]

We got a bunch of large dishrags from Walmart (I have a love-hate relationship with that store!) I think it was $4 for 12 of them and I ended up getting a second pack since the toddler makes so many messes (could almost use a third pack but that's because we never stay caught-up on laundry!) We keep them in a drawer in the kitchen and some in the bathroom closet. We have a 'one-time use' policy because I can't stand dirty dishrags, so they get thrown in the laundry bin immediately after use (if DH doesn't forget, grrrrrr.....) The only issue we had once was my dad was over helping DH with some construction project and he had some sticky gunk on his hands and said it would ruin any dishrag but we ended up giving him some torn up t-shirts (we we use as family cloth but I didn't tell him that ) Oh and we keep some of our family cloth in an old empty tissue box so maybe something like that would work for when you need to grab it like the roll of paper towels?

[JamieCatheryn]

Oh! I just remembered something great my friend has. She got a LOT of these cotton mechanic rags, I think at a bulk store like cosco maybe, besides garage uses they are awesome as one use towels for cleaning, kitchen, and handwashing.

[Lucy Alden]

I love floursack dish towels. They're large,cotton and super absorbent. I have a system I repeat about a million times a day:

1. Clean towel on counter for drying hands or dishes
2. Clean little hands and faces
3. Wipe down counters
4. Wipe up spills on floor
5. In the laundry basket

I probably go through a 6 to 12 towels a day depending on what's on the menu. I can't stand using a towel that is even slightly dirty to dry my hands or dishes.

I don't even buy paper towels anymore. When I did we'd go through a roll a day. The only time I miss them is when I'm dealing with grease, but only because it's so convenient to throw them out when I'm done.

And Drummer's Wife, those snapping "paper" towels are super cute. I'm just too lazy to snap and roll them back up.

[Davonia]

I don't like the feel of microfiber, so I just bought a large amount of washcloths. They all go into a basket and get washed together, along with the cloth napkins. For my cast iron, I bought some organic cotton cloths that were a very thin material, no loops... I used them for rolling a yule log... these worked really well for rubbing oil into my cast iron. I just use a corner, then fold it over and keep using it until there isn't any space left. Then it gets tossed in with the washcloths. This load of towels is the only thing I will wash on hot.