What do you do with dirty kitchen laundry?

[ZeldasMom]

We're trying to use fewer disposable products, so we decided to stop buying paper towels and napkins. We got a bunch more dishtowels and cloth napkins and so far it's going great.

I need some help with how to handle the soiled items though. We throw them in a nylon bag lined with polyutherane laminate (PUL) that has a drawstring at the top and wash every few days. This has worked fine for the most part, but a few days ago a bunch of the dirty towels developed mildw spots and I can't get them out. : I've tried sunning and soaking in oxiclean all night. I think where I went wrong is throwing wet items into the bag. I see 2 possible solutions:

(1) dry all soiled items before throwing them in the bag. The down side of this approach is where do a put these items to dry before throwing in the bag? I don't want people to think a dirty towel is clean and use it when they shouldn't.

or

(2) use a different type of bag for kitchen laundry that lets air in--maybe a string bag. Not sure if this would work.

We used to open up the basement door and throw the soiled items down the basement stairs. Never had any mildew problems, but I am liking throwing the laundry in a bag so much better! I would rather not go back to throwing things down the stairs if we can avoid it.

What do you do with the dirty kitchen laundry?

[Persephone]

I dry them before throwing them in. Here's how it works. On the oven, I have a hand towel that we use to dry our hands on. Hanging by a nail over the sink, I hang things that have to be dried. Usually, it's the dishcloth from the dishes. Occasionally, there's other stuff, a towel I used to wipe up a spill, or some "cloth paper towel" I had to dry before tossing it. But we know not to use that on our hands.

HTH!

[Wild Flowers]

All of our cloth, kitchen bathroom, goes into a basket. Then we just dump the basket in the wash. Maybe you could try an open hamper type thing? It doesn't dry it all but it is at least open and we haven't had problems with mildew. Or maybe you could put a basket at the bootom of your stairs and make baskets??? I miss having a basement, lucky.

[stafl]

In old days, before people used paper towels and napkins, they had these nifty towel drying racks made of wood, that were usually situated near the kitchen sink. They were basically three dowel rods with round balls on both ends, going through another piece of wood with three holes for the dowels. You'd pull the rod up and over to hang a towel or washrag on it to dry, but when not in use you could lift up and the dowel would fall down through the hole and lay flat to the wall... ugh, I need to find a picture...

[Alkenny]

We throw all of ours into a basket too, and haven't had any problems. Maybe a mesh bag would work?

[thistle]

I lay mine flat on top of the washer in the garage until I do laundry. Do you live in a humid climate? The mesh bag sounds like a good idea.

[celestialdreamer]

I leave mine spread out on the sink overnight to dry out some, then I throw them in the light laundry basket in the morning when I start the washer. I do a light load every other day so this works well for us (don't seem to have a problem if they have to wait a day). If I go to long with doing laundry we get the mildew spots too. If you want to stay with your system with a bag, I would say a mesh bag would be the best, but then the smells from the rags might be an issue. I think damp items are going to get mildew-y in the spots where they touch each other no matter what container you put them in, so wash frequently if you can.

[Ilovelife]

I almost hate to admit this, but I hang the wet/dirty cloths & towels on the inside handle of our basement door, which is in the kitchen. Then the next time I go to the basement, I take them & put them in a hamper in the laundry area until wash time. I wish I had a better solution, but space is limited. If our stairs were wider, I might use one of the stair baskets as a sort of hamper.

[pumpkin]

A while back I weaned myself off paper towels by buying a big stack of washcloths. I use them just like paper towels. I've gotten better about rinse and reusing but what keeps me from buying disposables is knowing that if the washcloth seems icky I can just grab another. So its possible to go through a whole bunch in a day. I try to shake off anything that will shake off and then just throw them into the bin wet. I keep them in a canvas bag that is open on top so they get a bit of air. I just moved and the canvas bag was dictated by the kitchen layout, I think I'm going to try a basket instead in the new house. I did occasionally get mold or mildew or whatever it was but it was surprisingly seldom and most often when I went over a week without doing the wash. I also learned to rinse the rags with dairy contact those were always problematic.

[aisling]

Like some of the others, I just have a small, open "hamper" for my kitchen laundry and I've never had a problem with mildew. It gets pretty humid here, too. I think the mesh bag might help a lot!

[aprons_and_acorns]

since everyone seems to have their own little system, I guess I'll weigh in with ours too.

When I decided to go cloth in the kitchen, I bought two packages of dish towels, two dozen washcloths (3.99 per dozen at Target) and then I cut up one old flannel sheet with pinking shears (no hems required). this was several years ago and we still have most of the original stuff. Plus some new items for when we have company.

We "shoot baskets" down the basement steps with our kitchen laundry, keep it in an open basket and I've never gotten mildew. At least, that I've noticed spots. If they start to smell funky, I use a bs&v wash and if it's really bad, a bleach wash :

Good luck!

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Around here, it seems like most people keep relatively few cloths ~ a dish, a floor and hand towel. They rinse well and hang to dry right away. I’m sure they don’t laundry wash after every use…more like 1x/week.

[~Megan~]

I just throw them in the regular laundry basket with all the other clothes. Perhaps laying them out to allow them to dry until you can wash might work better.
Or soaking them like cloth pads to prevent the stains from setting. You could put a bit of essential oil in the water to stop mildew.

[SageR]

I have a couple of dish clothes hanging around the kitchen at any given time. Usually I'll have one hanging on the oven handle and one spread out on the dish rack. I use them until they get soiled or start to smell. If there are pieces of food on it I will rinse it off in the sink first, but that doesn't happen too often. Then I just throw them right in the washer. They get washed with whatever else gets put in there, it doesn't matter to me if they are with lights or darks, I don't really care what they look like.

Every so often I will do one load of them on hot with baking soda and let them soak so they don't get permanently smelly. I have never had a probably with mildew or mustiness, they just tend to smell like old cooking.

My favorite ones are cotton and have either a waffle type texture or terry cloth - they are the most absorbant imo.

[hubris]

I set soiled kitchen cloth on one end of the counter and carry it up to the laundry on my next trip upstairs. If something is very damp, I just hang it over the edge of the hamper.

[UUMom]

I pretty much have a few loads of laundry a week, as I have 4 kids, plus dh and me so there's always some needing-to be washed socks and undies around. I use no paper products at all in my kitchen and have lots of small towels to dry lettuce, and handle hot pot covers. Since it's summer i also wash beach towels a couple of times a week. I do a load of these things around every other night after dinner, so I put the kitchen things directly in the washing machine with the other stuff. I have a font loader which adjusts water usage to the size of the load. I also put my sponges in the dishwasher every night. Mildew, ick.

PS I count walking to the washing machine to throw things in the wash as excersize. Sometimes i will even make multiple trips. The girls socks first, then back for the boys, then to my room, kitchen etc I know Im crazy, but I wear a pedometer and every step counts. :LOL PS You don't have to tell my I'm crazy. I already know it. But i tell myself at least I don't have to walk a mile to the stream and bang it all on rocks.

[Silliest]

My laundry room is right off the kitchen, so it's pretty handy ;->

I sometimes go through 2 loads of towels in a day around here. (#2 is semi-potty-trained, but still likes to pee in strange places and plug up the toilet, and... well... we have a lot of messes.) The main factor for us, seems to be pre-rinsing anything with dairy products or meat juices on it.

We compost and recycle, so we don't really need a ktichen trash can. We have a kitchen laundry hamper instead.
I have a milk-crate under the sink to toss the cleaned recycleables into, an ice-cream bucket for the compostables, and a plastic grocery bag hangs inside the cabinet under the sink for stuff that's not recycleable or compostable.

The laundry hamper is just inside the laundry room, so I just toss stuff in there during the day. It can go 2-3 days between washes, even if it's damp when it goes in. If it's sopping, milky, or bloody, I'll go ahead and run it through a quick rinse cycle and let it sit, tossing more laundry on top of it the next day until I have a full load.

We *try* to do laundry sorted by where it belongs. ie, a load of kitchen stuff, a load of Kid-stuff, a load of mom's stuff, a load of bathroom stuff... because the sorting is the most time consuming part of the routine from my perspective. So the less sorting and hauling stuff from one end of the house to the other, the happier I am ;->

[ZeldasMom]

Thanks for all the good ideas!!!!

Originally Posted by stafl

In old days, before people used paper towels and napkins, they had these nifty towel drying racks made of wood, that were usually situated near the kitchen sink. They were basically three dowel rods with round balls on both ends, going through another piece of wood with three holes for the dowels. You'd pull the rod up and over to hang a towel or washrag on it to dry, but when not in use you could lift up and the dowel would fall down through the hole and lay flat to the wall... ugh, I need to find a picture...

I think I have seen these. Maybe the next time we are at the library I will see if I see a pattern in a woodworking book--though maybe this is the kind of thing you would have to find in an old book at a used bookstore.

[partymoo]

.

[UmmIbadullah]

I'm just starting out or should I say semi clothin' it in the kitchen and bath. For now I place rags over the heater in both rooms cause they(the heaters) seem real icky to me, I won't put anything I consider to be clean on them. If I can't do this then I hang the rag over the cabinet door under the sink once its been rinsed. If I get handy enough I'd like to put up a lil towel rack on the inside of cabinet door to let the cloths dry there. I don't really like seeing them hanging from the outside. After they are dry I throw them into waste pail under the sink until I wash them.....usually I wash separate from other laundry if I have enough cloths.