The Paper Towel Issue

Paper towels are a hot button issue for my family. We seem to go through them at lightening speed. Which just seems like a waste to me! If you spill a glass of milk, you can easily use a sponge right? Well in my house it seems like the bigger the amount of liquid spilled, the more we will just reach for a roll of paper towels.

I keep a dozen or so cotton dish towels around for spills like that too. But now that I have thought about it a little, I might finally understand the thought process behind wasting half a roll of paper towels. For a spill of something like a glass of milk, it's a yucky sticky mess. If you soak up all the milk with a paper towel, you can just throw it all away. Whereas if you use a dish towel, a few days later you have to confront it again as a damp sour smelling lump in your hamper. It is just me, but I feel that that is worth it to use the towel and suck it up when laundry day comes. DH prefers the easy paper towel though, so we keep buying them. I am starting to get my way sometimes when what is spilled is a glass of water or something non-offensive like that.

I think I might have finally found the thing to get us off the paper towels (or at least a drastic reduction). Seventh Generation. Sorry, this is not news breaking stuff. Virtually everyone I know uses this brand, but today I learned that their paper towels use 100% recycled paper, no chlorine, and at my grocery store they were $5 for three rolls (??!!). I went to grab one yesterday and I thought twice about using them. In fact, I finished the job with the sponge. Whatever the motivation is, consuming fewer paper products are a good thing. FYI-I started using http://www.diapers.com/ to order Seventh Generation products like dish washing detergent and counter top dish soap. So far I am super happy. In case you guys don't know--diapers.com will ship for free on order greater than $50 and they literally have EVERYTHING that you need to raise children. Seriously.

The thing that moved me the most was the quote on the front of the package: "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generation." This is from the Great Law of the Iroquois. And it is a humbling thought because so much of what we do in business, agriculture and foreign policy is not good for future generations. Maybe there is hope for us yet.