By JEAN OSBORN
Sustainability Committee Member
Paper towels are daily “necessities,” aren’t they? It’s so easy to grab one – or many. But should we?
Think of how you use them. A spill on the floor or counter. Drying a just-washed piece of fruit. Washing windows or cleaning anything. Consider using a small cloth for these instead. A small investment in cleaning cloths will give you many cloths for many purposes for many years. Washing small cloths can be much more energy efficient and will save you money.
There are exceptions to the cloths-not-paper-towels strategy. For instance, use a paper towel for wiping the heavy grease out of a pan before washing. Keeping that grease out of your drain will benefit your septic tank and also help to avoid clogs. If you are using Black Earth’s curbside composting service, the grease-laden paper towels can go into your compost bin.
To get paper towels to you, much expensive and energy-consuming work has to be done. The paper towels have to be manufactured, packaged, transported, shelved in a store, purchased and transported to your home. For occasions that do call for paper towels, we can save trees by using 100% recycled versions.
So this is the challenge. Track how long a new paper towel roll lasts in your home. Then track the next one and see if you can extend the time by a week (or a month!). And the next one by two weeks (or two months). This will more than pay for itself and you will be saving trees and the environment.
Content for the Sustainability Corner is provided periodically to the Transcript by members of the town’s Sustainability Committee.