I Could See Trees Wilting as I Walked By...

Have you ever been able to go to one of the nicer restaurants?  I'm talking about the ones with the nice, white linen tablecloths and napkins that come decorated with a wooden ring around them.  The table might even have some nice, clear wine goblets at the table, next to water goblets and 8 sets of silverware.

What was it about the restaurant that made it special?  For me, I can definitely say it's not all that silverware - I find it intimidating.  Also, the glasses normally get taken away because I don't use them all.  The cloth napkins give the table a sense of elegance and sophistication.  It's also slightly relaxing.

So why in the world would you ever use paper towels and napkins at home?  Home is a place to relax.  You deserve something a little more elegant at home.  Also, do you even have enough space to store all those paper products that you buy?  how much do you spend on one-time-only disposable products?

Think about the businesses out there where the public is allowed in.  Think about the casinos, restaurants, bowling centers, schools, gas stations, movie theaters, stores, etc.  Can you picture yourself there?  Ok, now go to the bathrooms.  Do they have paper towels for you to wash your hands?  Or are they the push button (or automatic for fancier places) electric hand dryers?  Most likely, there are electric hand dryers.  Most businesses would have you think it was because they are trying to be green.  What they don't tell you is that it costs $.0015 per dry with the electric dryer and $.03 per dry with paper towels.  It's all economical.

That same concept works at home.  Granted, none of us are going to rewire our bathrooms to install an electric hand dryer, but paper products like those just aren't efficient.  Take this example comparison, using Wal-Mart as the retailer for both the paper and cloth versions.  An 8-pack of dish towels is less than $5.  An 8-pack of Great Value brand paper towels is $2.86.  For less than the cost of 2 8-pack paper towels, you can have towels that can be reused as many times as necessary.

When I was doing all this research, there were a surprising number of people that were arguing against regular towels as being less expensive in the long run.  Laundry fees for those who have to use a laundromat was the biggest argument.  They said it could cost over $4.00 a whack just to wash those towels.

I say this: don't you wash bath towels anyway?  Just throw the other towels in with them.  Heck, maybe you don't do a separate towel load and just throw them in with like colors.  It's not like you have to wash them everyday or after one use, like clothes.  The towels aren't very big.  They can fit in your normal loads.  Trust me.

Finally, there was an article that reported that cotton towels do not save the environment and are actually worse than paper towels.  Cotton towels emit more greenhouse gasses during production and use more water than their paper counterparts.  If you're very concerned with that as a Green-minded person, the solution is simple.  Use linen instead of cotton.  The clean-up is just slightly more complicated, but they don't cost much more.

Alright, I know that with pets, picnics, certain messes, and those friends you would never trust with something as nice as cloth, there are just times you have to use paper napkins and paper towels.  Toilet paper is also something that I would not recommend switching to cloth.  So, I'm definitely not saying you should skip buying them altogether - that just isn't practical.  Just buy them sparingly.

You will save money.  If you absolutely need paper napkins and can't seem to fork out the money for them, you can do what I do.  Keep the extras from your fast-food run.  They always either give you too many or too few.  Even though they might not match, they still do their duty.  There are also ways to reuse and reduce the products you already have!  It just might take a little thinking.