Reduce Paper Towels – It’s Easy to Reduce Waste!

Reduce Paper Towels – A Small Change, a BIG Difference

 

reduce paper towelHow easy is it to reduce paper waste? Is it easy to reduce the number of paper towels you use? Living green means (amongst other things) reducing the amount of stuff you waste.

Simply put, if you reduce paper waste, you reduce the number of trees that need to be cut down, processed and then discarded. (The paper manufacturing process is not green because it pollutes),

Today I’d like to challenge you to reduce paper waste by reducing the number of paper towels (kitchen towel / kitchen roll) you use.

So first, let me ask you:

 

Are they Really Convenient?

reduce paper waste Everybody thinks so but are they? Paper towels can be convenient, but they create a habit and mindset that can be hard to break.  Even the advertising for them perpetuates the “throw-away mentality” that’s everywhere today.

But if you think about it, you always need to keep replacing them.  Replacing them means

  • More money
  • More space when shopping
  • More storage space at home
  • More rubbish so the garbage bin fills up more quickly, so it needs to be emptied more often.
  • More plastic (wrapping) to recycle

Cloth towels, on the other hand, rarely need replacing and are perfect for cleaning up something that might cause stains or discoloration.

Old t-shirts, sheets and pillowcases are also perfect.

Pop then in with your normal laundry and voila, fresh and clean again!

 

How Many Paper Towels Do We Use?

I was pretty horrified at the statistics.  And isn’t it interesting that the countries with relatively low populations use the most? (The red line shows population, the blue bars show the weight of paper towel used per person by country).

paper towel consumption 2007 risiinfo com
Paper Towel Use 2007 from RisiInfo.com
  • A 2008 paper industry journal noted that the demand for paper towel was increasing all over the world.  There are lots of growth opportunities in the paper towels sector, it reported gleefully.
  • According to a talk on TED, (I’ll show you the short video soon), 13 billion pounds of paper towels are used every year – and paper towel is light!
  • Apparently, if we could reduce global paper towel usage by just one paper towel per person per day, then 571,230,000 pounds of paper would not be used.

We can do that – and more!

Here’s how: (there’s a fun video and a free Cheat Sheet coming up).

 

Reduce Your Paper Waste in Restaurants

Next time you’re eating in a restaurant, be mindful of how much paper you actually use.  Many places have a pile of napkins in the middle of the table.  How many do you take?

reduce paper waste with linen napkinsWhat about the main serviette for your meal – is it linen or paper?  I always carry a handkerchief, so if there are no linen napkins, I use that instead, it’s easy.

Sometimes my husband and I get a takeaway from a local restaurant.  We bring our own containers and they know not to give us anything else (no napkins or sauces, nor those horrible little plastic cutlery things).

single-use take out food containersI don’t buy fast food, however a while ago I went into a MacDonald’s (I needed a restroom) (I wonder how much money MacDonald’s make from people like me?) and bought a packet of chips / fries.

Take-out food is notorious for its paper waste, so I asked for no napkin, no sauce or anything else, but it all arrived on the tray.  I politely handed it back and explained I didn’t need the extras.  Oh, OK, said the obliging server, who took all the extras off the tray – and then dumped them in the wastebin!   Aaaaargh!

 

Reduce Paper Towels at Home

Easy – use re-usable cloths to clean worktops, mop up spills instead of paper towels.

(Tip:  if you mop up as you go, stains don’t form, so you won’t need to use any products to remove them, just a quick wipe with your re-usable cloth).

Keep a mop, some old towels / t-shirts handy – they can be used to clean almost anything.

reduce paper waste with cleaning ragsDon’t use paper towels for dusting.  Reduce paper waste and re-use old pillow cases, tops, t-shirts.  Just shake them out when you’re finished dusting, and pop them in with your normal laundry every now and again.

Mirrors and windows – spray vinegar (with essential oils added for aroma if you wish) and use yesterday’s newspaper scrunched up or an old t-shirt to rub and polish.  You get sparkling mirrors and windows!

 

Reduce Paper Waste in Restrooms

Restrooms, hmmm.  A difficult one (even though it should be easy).

For drying your hands, there are 2 main options in most restrooms:

  1. Paper towels
  2. Air dryers

Option 2 should be more green, because they’re not using disposables, right?

hand dryer in washroom toiletThe big advantage of air dryers is that they don’t generate waste – there’s no paper to dispose of.  They also need very little maintenance, compared to paper towel holders which need to be re-filled constantly.  (This is the main reason why they’re popular with building managers).

On the down side, air dryers take more resources to manufacturer than paper towel holders, and they are more expensive to buy.  Every time they’re used they need electricity, which is most commonly provided by power plants using coal – a fossil fuel.

Then there’s the hygiene issue.  Hot air encourages bacteria.  According to the University of Westminster in London, studies comparing bacteria counts after washing and drying hands showed that the total number of bacteria was found to increase hugely (up to 254%) with the warm air dryer; a smaller increase was shown in the total number of bacteria (up to 15%) with a jet dryer.  But after washing and drying hands with a paper towel, the total number of bacteria was reduced by up to 77% .

(Yes, you read that correctly:  after washing your hands, if you dry them with a hot air dryer, your bacteria count increases!  It decreases significantly if you use paper towels).

paper towel dispenserSo, purely from a hygiene point of view (which is pretty important in public restrooms), paper towels win.

But let’s look more closely at the wastage from paper towel holders.

  • People often take more towels than they really need.
  • Tri-fold or C-fold paper towels are often loaded incorrectly into the holder.  As a result, even if you only want to pull one out, a little stack falls out.  And what happens to those?  They’re viewed as soiled, so they go into the waste – even though they’ve never been used.

So, how can you reduce paper waste in restrooms?

Here are some ideas.

  • In an office or gym scenario you could bring your own towel.  That could work well (as long as you remember to bring it with you!).
  • People who work in building facilities should ensure that service staff fill the dispensers correctly, explaining why.
  • If you use paper towels at home, be sure to compost them – they’re wonderful!  Composting neutralizes any toxins, the paper towels provide moisture for other drier ingredients, and you end up with rich mulch for gardening!  (If you don’t want to keep a compost pile in your backyard, many places offer curbside waste collection).  And you don’t send them to landfill – a win-win!
  • Most of all, we can stop pulling out two, three, four or even more towels when we want to dry our hands.

 

Video and Cheat Sheet

To say “Thank You” for reading this article, I thought you might like to have this one-page Cheat Sheet – just click this link then print the document and pop it on your fridge!

Watch this very short and amusing video from Ted and you’ll never use paper towels the same way again!

Isn’t this a great way to make a big difference environmentally with such little sacrifice?

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Tags

how to reduce paper towels, paper towels, reduce paper towels, what to use instead of paper towels


  • Wow … I did not know that using a single paper towel is better than the air blower. Love that video … and I’ll be shaking and folding from now on. Thank you for the cheat sheet (great idea) and all the tips … if everyone did just one of those, we’d reduce waste by quite a lot!

      • Glad it worked for you! I needed to check it worked before I published this article, and indeed it did. You definitely have to do both steps (shake and fold), it’s more difficult to only use one if you don’t shake first. Thanks for the update, it’s appreciated!

  • As an Architect involved in public buildings I always try to persuade our clients not to install electric dryers of any sort for a number of reasons but essentially because I believed that they were not a healthy option. Thank you University of Westminster! Paper towels if properly designed in and monitored are definitely the best option. Thanks Clare for this longer than usual but very informative Blog.

    • Glad it was helpful, and I’m also glad you’ll be recommending paper towel dispensers! Perhaps they need a sign telling people to only use one and fold it….. Thanks for your comment!

  • Great post!
    In many places where paper towels are simply not given (sensibly, many places in Asia), you can see people emerging from restrooms shaking and shaking their hands. It works.
    In dry places you don’t have to shake that much in order to be able to skip the paper towel.

    The electric dryers: maybe the problem is when there is an electric dryer _and_ a trash can for paper towels. Especially when the dryer is (stupidly) mounted directly over the trash can. In those situations I always skip the dryer.

    • Very good point CelloMom that if we shake we don’t need even one paper towel! (Of course we don’t get the bacteria reduction without the towel either). As I understand it, the problem with the electric dryers is the heat (bacteria like heat) but you’re right, I have seen them mounted above the trash can and absolutely, that’s daft. You know, I’ve spent a bit of time in Asia and I’d forgotten about people walking out shaking their hands – thanks so much for the reminder and for commenting!

  • I use cloths to wipe up spills at home but my workplace does have paper towels in the restrooms – I do try to take just one at a time though.

    I did a similar investigation into toilet paper not too long ago and the argument for using recycled loo roll instead of that made from virgin wood pulp – the greenhouse gas emissions totalled 500,000 tonnes per year and that was just for the UK population – all from switching to a recycled product!

    • Wow, that’s a huge amount (and just for the UK!). It’s true that recycling paper is good – recycled paper saves new trees being cut down, and the recycling process causes less air and water pollution than making virgin paper. Of course the waste sludge is an issue, as is power (power for new paper often comes from burning waste wood, while for recycling the power may be purchased from the grid, which is often generated from fossil fuels). But even so, you’re absolutely right, it’s still better to recycle than to create new.
      I’m sure in the UK it’s pretty easy to find recycled paper towels?
      I wonder how many building managers actively source recycled paper towels….

    • Absolutely Carol, I loathe those hot air dryers in public toilets, I don’t think they’re good at all. I normally carry a handkerchief and use that. Good for you to have given up kitchen roll / paper towels at home, that’s great, it’s really green! Thanks so much for popping in!

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