My daughter SWEARS by Baggu - she has one of these cross body pouches and uses it instead of a purse daily!
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ALSO, I forgot to mention, just last week I went to a âmake your own rain barrelâ class. I donât have it hooked up yet - I want to paint it first. But excited to save the rain water from running off and instead nourishing my plants!
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I had an acquaintance who worked in the food safety industry, and she said she ALWAYS used paper towels, not cleaning rags. So I try to be careful in general but I use paper towels. There are a lot of germs on cleaning rags and sponges.
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Not if you wash them very frequently. I change my dish towels at least twice a day. Have a huge pile, so only have to do one dish towel laundry load a week.
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I donât see how thatâs much better than paper towels if you change them so frequently. You have to factor in the energy used to wash them, too. And I imagine you are in the minority for changing them so often. But everyone is free to do what they want and thatâs fine.
Similar to using cloth vs disposable diapers. I read an article that stated, âFinancially, the great cloth diaper debate seems to come out a wash. But what about the environmental impact of laundering cotton diapers versus throwing away disposables? A UK-based study found that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by using disposable diapers for 2.5 years would be less than the carbon output of laundering reusables in most cases. Even considering the additional disposables that end up in crowded landfills, experts on low-carbon living argue that the environmental impact might still be less than using fancy biodegradable diapers or even cloth. Obviously, running full loads of diapers on cold water and then line drying could help to decrease the carbon footprint, but it also means stocking more diapers and investing more time, which again increases the overall cost.â
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Plastic bags that you take back to the grocery store arenât being recycled, they are being thrown out.
There is no after market anymore for single use plastics (or styrofoam) â China and other countries used to buy those, but no more. Only a very small portion of plastics are ever recycled. I avoid them like the plague, yet still end up with shrink wrap, etc.
We once lived in a town that only allowed garbage collection in this big, heavy duty plastic bags that you had to buy from the township for $5 each â thus creating immense incentive to reduce output and/or share (we collected our 90yr old neighborâs garbage to put with ours, for example).
As for paper towels, I personally decided that the environmental impact of making them, packaging them, transporting them, has to be worse than cutting up cotton and using that with vinegar and water in a spray bottle. It is complicated, for sure.
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I prefer studies over âI personally decided." If someone could find some data either way, that would be great.
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Absolutely. Of course, finding something based on data and not marketing is proving to be tricky 
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There most certainly is an aftermarket for single use plastic in the US. Resin can be as much as 100% post consumer goods but there isnât enough available because we do a poor job on the recycling side.
As an aside, in most states that have banned plastic grocery bags, companies that make small waste bags have seen a huge increase in sales.
In many cases it takes a much lower carbon footprint to manufacture plastic over glass, aluminum and paper. As a country we need to do a much better job at recycling what we use. And the problem isnât necessary with sorting at home, but what your town in doing once itâs collected.
I wash my kitchen hand towels daily. I donât use sponges. I have two dish scrubbers (not sure what to call them) that I throw in the dishwasher every other day.
I mainly use the hand towel for a couple of hours prepping dinner and then prepping my breakfast/lunch to take to work the next day. A couple of hours of use then down the chute it goes. If I was using paper towels for that same time frame/tasks I would use at least several of them - I like keeping my hands clean! 7 hand towels just get added to a regular load of wash. Donât require their own load, donât tip the scale of needing to do an additional load.
I do NOT wash my after shower towels daily! I think that is overkill and overusing resources for me - after all I use it after Iâve showered!
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We donât wash towels often - once a week generally. Hand towels will get changed out two or three times in that time period.
I think exposure to bugs is generally good for the body, so we arenât super clean at our house.
When we handle raw meat we take higher precautions, but thatâs it - and we donât do that daily.
Iâve seen a few TV news reports that many recyclables arenât actually recycled. They just go to the dump like trash does even if in separate containers for pick up. We personally take ours to a place near us where we know they recycle them (itâs a job for men at a âmission.â) Thatâs why weâre at a loss for glass now - they no longer accept that.
Plus we always try to buy items made from recycled material. Our pasture fence, picnic table, front porch, etc, are all from recycled plastic and we love them.
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So I see the benefit of using cloth napkins but have not made the switch. I didnât use them as a child, so to me itâs more of a fancy meal thing (we do use them in dining room if the tablecloth has a set).
Perhaps if I would have started doing that if the washing machine had been downstairs. What I have been doing though is reusing my napkin for the next meal(s) and then for some chore (wiping of plates or more usually spot cleaning on floors) or âtissueâ in my pocket when running. Now that weâve joined city composting, that will be their last stop.
I sometimes use âdishwasher safeâ sponges and clean them there. But maybe any sponge can go in the dishwasher(?)⊠not sure.
We need to replace a door on our workshop and Iâve spent the last hour or so trying to locate a recycled plastic one without success. Have all the companies we used to buy from gone out of business in the past couple of years? I donât recall their names, but I know it was easy to find things using google. Now itâs not, and what I can find is overseas - not exactly easy to buy from. The door needs to be 32"x72."
I had planned on this being my Motherâs Day gift from the family, but maybe not at this point!
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Ooooh⊠just gotta take a humor break here to share a family story.
I once read an article that a rule of thumb to judge whether a restaurant is kid-appropriate is to look at the napkins. Paper-OK. Cloth-probably not. Nonetheless when older kid was away with a relative we opted to take our younger kid (4 years old) to âThe Oasisâ in Boulder for Sunday BrunchâŠ. cloth napkins and all. It was a fascinating decor, with huge moving fan on the ceiling - he LOVED it, special But I was dismayed to look over and see him using his crayons to draw on the cloth napkins! We were embarrassed, crumpled the napkin to hide the evidence.
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72" tall is an odd sized door to begin with. Iâm not sure youâll find one that doesnât have to be cut down to meet that size.
Agreed. H said the only ones he could find were in white or black and were traditional doors. White is my least favorite color for anything. Black wonât look good either. Our workshop is tan colored (metal siding).
He could also fix the ancient door that is there by sanding it, replacing metal parts, and painting to a color that matches, but thatâs a lot of work and the wood, itself, isnât in the best shape. It wasnât in good shape when we moved in 24 years ago, so doesnât owe us anything, but Iâd like to see it gone with something better in its place.
Baggu bags are great because they are machine washable and come out looking great after washing. I have Baggu bags that are for grocery shopping and ones that I keep in my handbag for clothes or shoe shopping.
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We are a family of six, though one is totally out of the house now. During the beginning of Covid, to save on paper towels that were scarce at the time, I bought a set of 12 napkins, six different colors. Just so happened my three kids at home went to three diff schools that had diff school colors that matched the set I bought. Depending on the meal, sometimes the napkins could be reused so I just left them on their dinner chairs. Never got confused with whose was whose since they knew their color. It really was amazing once we started using cloth how long it took to go through a roll of paper towels! Our laundry is in the basement, so I just toss into a small bin on the basement stairs and wash next time Iâm doing a load of laundry.
Sponges are kind of icky to me but I still do use them. I use one for dishes and one to wipe counters/table. I put them on top rack of my dishwasher and wash when I run a load of dishes which is usually every night.
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I have no idea if this is true but I have a relative in the waste industry who tells me that with single stream recycling most of the materials end up in landfills. Where I live we have a transfer station that has co-mingling of plastic and cans. At our vacation place, you have to separate all your recyclingâsame state.
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Our county switched years ago from open bins (one for glass/plastic, the other for paper) to a 96 gallon recycle bin picked up on alternate weeks. The link below includes a cool video of the sorting robots (named via a local contest - Sorty McSortface and Sir Sorts-a-Lot). On quick checking, I have not found any efficiency statements - I fear that much of it still ends up at the landfill⊠but hopefully in a more efficient scheme than in the old days of no recycling.
https://www.bouldercounty.org/environment/recycle/recycling-center/
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