Paper Towel Free Month

In an effort to a) green my life style and b) be more conscious in my consumption, I planned April to be a paper towel free month. We have a surplus of old towels, dish cloths, and other fabric options we could be using, but it's too easy and too familiar to reach for paper towels for every mess.

I actually ran out of paper towels in the last week of March, and decided against purchasing more. For the most part we've been using the cloth options, but I've also noticed an increase in our use of disposable disinfecting wipes - not at all what I was hoping to accomplish.

With the exception of using more disinfecting wipes, so far we haven't missed paper towels at all. It took my husband more than a week to notice we were out of paper towels - and he's generally both cooking and cleaning crew in the kitchen. The additional cloth usage hasn't been enough to lead to an increase in laundry loads so far.

Of course, we haven't dealt with much raw meat or any cat messes, my two biggest paper towel using messes. Personally, I'm hoping we don't run into either of those issues. Ever again.

So far, I'm very happy with how this is going. I'm hoping the month trial will be a success and we'll keep it up - although I think I might keep a single roll on hand for dealing with anything really messy (see above).

We'll see how I'm feeling in a few more weeks!