Paper Towels vs Napkins

I never shared my thoughts on it, but one of the items on my 30 Before Thirty list was to reduce my reliance on paper towels. Here's why:


* According to 1800recycling.com
** According to my shopping trip to Costco

Now I'm far from a crunchy granola treehugger, but I do try to be mindful of how my decisions impact the environment and my pocketbook and this one was a no brainer. The amount of paper towel my family consumes is ridiculous! So Mark and I made the conscious decision a while back to use dishtowels instead of paper towels to sop up messes, and to reach for rags instead of paper towels when doing household cleaning.

I took things one step further a few weeks back and used a vintage sheet to sew up some napkins for us to use with meals. They're nothing earth-shattering, just a square with the edges hemmed (I contemplated mitering the corners, but gave up on that pretty quickly). It cost me just $3 and I got 12 napkins from it, plus some scraps. Mark was a little leary at first - he said he didn't want to use an old bedsheet to wipe his face, to which I quickly pointed out that he sleeps with his face on a bedsheet every night - but the switch has been really easy. And bonus, they're much cuter than paper towels!



Have you made any changes lately in an effort to be more environmentally-conscious?