There are environmentalists who never ever use paper towels. I'm not one of them. We use paper towels, toilet paper, and even paper napkins if we're having a big group over and the cloth napkins we have on hand and use every day won't cut it. But the most important decision we've made when it comes to our household paper is to use the highest percentage of post consumer recycled content paper products available.
Recycled paper is always wonderful, but it's not all created equally. People often think that when we buy recycled paper, we're buying paper that other people have previous used and then recycled from their homes or offices. Unfortunately this isn't always the case. Only products with "post consumer" content are those that have been previously used and recycled by everyday folks. Regular recycled content is pre-consumer and basically the waste and by-products created when manufacturing something else. While it's also important to recycle this stuff, it's even more beneficial to recycle the post consumer waste since that's the stuff overcrowding the landfills.We're partial to Seventh Generation which uses a minimum of 80% post consumer content.
So while we do use paper products in around our cottage, we also use common sense when doing so. Like I mentioned before, we only use paper napkins when we have a group of people coming over. We also rely very heavily on rags for basic everyday uses like cleaning the glass coffee table, wiping down countertops, or drying dishes. We never use paper towels for these things. But paper towels are invaluable for tasks like draining bacon strips on a plate, or cleaning up cat vomit. Sorry, I'm just not going to use a towel for those things. In addition to old shirts and sheets, we buy packs of white washcloths which we promptly turn into rags at Target for about $3 a stack and use them until they fall apart. Super easy, super green.
So while we do use paper products in around our cottage, we also use common sense when doing so. Like I mentioned before, we only use paper napkins when we have a group of people coming over. We also rely very heavily on rags for basic everyday uses like cleaning the glass coffee table, wiping down countertops, or drying dishes. We never use paper towels for these things. But paper towels are invaluable for tasks like draining bacon strips on a plate, or cleaning up cat vomit. Sorry, I'm just not going to use a towel for those things. In addition to old shirts and sheets, we buy packs of white washcloths which we promptly turn into rags at Target for about $3 a stack and use them until they fall apart. Super easy, super green.
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