Paper towels stink—environmentally speaking. There’s all that goes into making them (trees, water, energy, transport). And then there’s where billions of pounds of them end up: the landfill. Sure, if they’re soiled with food, you can pitch them in the compost, but that’s not so easy for everyone. Plus, as is true in pretty much any sustainability situation, the best solution is to stop grabbing for them so frequently.
There are alternatives to kick them out of your home entirely—a single Swedish dishcloth, for one, can replace up to 18 rolls’ worth of towels—but the benefits of simply cutting back can also add up. And making the switch in a way that ensures the alternative nets out better for the planet is easier than you might think.
Figuring out how much better a reusable is, though, is tricky, and totally independent research on the subject is annoyingly scarce. A lot of blogs and news items shout out a 2011 MIT study in which hand dryers come out way ahead in terms of their footprint—and which (ahem) Dyson, makers of possibly bacteria-blasting dryers, commissioned. On the flipside, Proctor & Gamble, who owns Bounty, funded its own study in 2016, which, among other things, highlights an accounting ouroboros in which the carbon sequestration benefits of growing trees neatly cancels out the emissions of turning those same plants into paper pulp.
Does that mean reusables are a greener option no matter what? Not exactly. Saying they’re “better” ultimately depends on how long you use them. Based on the production and laundry emissions alone, the switch could take years before breaking even.
Factor in the towels belching methane in the landfill, though, and the balance tips quickly. According to the EPA, paper and paperboard make up the largest portion of what Americans send to the dump each year, and tissue and paper towels account for about 3.8 million tons. If we say half of that total is towels, that’s still a lot of pollution-burping rubbish. When we did the cocktail-napkin math a couple years back, replacing 75% of a household’s annual paper-towel usage with cotton bar mops got us into the green in a year—including laundry.
Crunch the numbers with recycled paper towels instead of those made from virgin fiber, and the break-even point could hit even sooner. Consider, for example, that if the tissue industry used recycled content instead of freshly-felled trees to make toilet paper and towels, it would cut its overall emissions by 13.1 million tons a year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. That’s like canceling out the annual emissions of 2.6 million gas-burning cars
But, how do you break a habit you’ve had for years—and stick to it? Psychologists have landed on something of a formula for creating a habit, which boils down to two things. First, you have to understand your motivation, your “why.” Then you need to anticipate the places you’re going to screw up, and give yourself leeway. In dialing down a paper-towel problem, the “why” is easy: ♥️ 🌎. Getting a jump on the missteps might take a little thought, so we roughed out a plan of attack.
Step 1: Accept you’re not going to quit paper entirely
It might be unreasonable for you to eliminate towels full-stop, so it’s important to take an inventory of what you currently use them for to delineate the tasks that will and won’t use paper. Your towels might be the go-to for drying glassware and produce, mopping up counters, and wiping down cooking messes on the stove—and pet messes on the floor. You might use them to line containers of greens to absorb moisture and keep them fresher longer.
Draw some lines in the sand. Scooping up kitty puke with a cloth that doesn’t go right into the washing machine or on a one-way trip to the dumpster probably isn’t happening. Paper might just do too-good of a job keeping your greens crisp, so it got a pass there, too. But the other everyday kitchen stuff? That a reusable can probably could handle.
Step 2: Make your reusables easy to grab
You want ensure quick-grab-ability in your storage situation—that is, that you’ll be able to reliably pull out only one towel at a time with one hand. A crafty options, like carefully spooling them around a paper-towel holder to mimic the real thing, could work for you; but it could also be too fussy. Some people favor cramming them unfolded in to a big jar, and yanking one from the top they way you would a tissue. Maybe you like to fold or roll them neatly into a basket or bin you already have on hand. Play around—and figure out what kind of routine you can sustain.
Step 4: Identity a habitual location
If the cloth towels were even a shade less convenient than their trashy counterparts, any switcheroo would be sunk. That’s why it’s important to put your trove of reusable towels near where you would mindlessly grab for a towel and make the reach for cloth a mirror of what you are already doing. Eventually, you’ll probably be able to relocate the paper, but leaning into an existing habit is an important first step.
Step 5: Agree on what ‘dirty’ means
These reusable paper towels are going to encounter a lot of kitchen funk, so it is essential to set loose ground rules for what triggers a wash cycle. A couple potential if-this-then-thats:
- If all it touches is water, or you only used a small corner to wipe up a drip of something, hang it up and let it dry
- If you’re actively cooking, and need something to regularly wipe your mitts on, keep it on the counter or slung over your shoulder.
- If it touches the floor, mops up a spill, or is engaged in a post-cooking wipe-down, give it a ticket to the laundry bin.
Step 6: Establish a hamper
Your clothes hamper is in the bedroom—or very close to it—which is not the place you want days-old food messes to linger. Convert an unused wastebasket into an under-the-sink laundry bin for soiled towels. When the canister’s full, toss the towels into the laundry with your other linens.
Step 7: Cut yourself some slack
It’s gonna take time to hit your goals. When we tried this method, it took us three months of the cloth-towel life—50% longer than the 60-days pop-psych says it takes to form a new habit—to move the paper towels off the counter. But we did it, our kitchen is clean, and life is no less convenient.