Spills, drips, grime -- paper towels are our go-to. We use these disposable items for our countertops, floors, mouths, hands -- you name it. It's a pretty versatile item. What's not so flexible is its ultimate destination -- landfills.
Is that really the only option? No, it's just the predominant one. Paper towels can be composted according to the Environmental Protection Agency, but how many actually are? Penn State found that "over 60 percent of what we put in our landfills is organic waste, such as food scraps, yard trimmings and paper, much of which could be recycled by composting." This indicates that despite being compostable, these items usually are not.
Some companies like Seventh Generation strive to decrease their environmental impact. Their paper towel is made from 100 percent recycled content, 50 percent of which is post-consumer recycled. According to their website, "if every household in the US replaced just one two-pack of 140-sheet virgin paper towels with our 100 percent recycled product, we could save over 720,000 trees." Why are we killing so many trees when often a paper towel sits on our table barely touched? Seventh Generation's product is also whitened without chlorine. They offer unbleached paper towel as well.
Ingredients are important to consider not just in food but in all products that we use, especially those used on a daily basis. Another brand of paper towels, Bounty, contains "virgin wood pulp (they do not contain recycled fibers), wet strength polymer, printing ink (except in white varieties), adhesive (present in trace amounts) and ceteareth-10," according to their website. Another paper towel of theirs, Bounty with Dawn, is a "disposable detergent towel designed for cleaning purposes." Bounty discourages "using it with food and suggest[s] you continue using [their] regular paper towels with food." This caution is one of the many reasons to be aware of product contents.
It's not really cost-effective to buy two different paper towel products from Bounty -- one for personal use and one for cleaning. At Meijer, two rolls of Bounty with Dawn cost $4.99 (sale price), and the cheapest two rolls of a regular Bounty product I could find were $3.89. The total would be $8.88. Seventh Generation is available in a six-pack for $8.99, which would be about $2.99 per two rolls. Even if you only purchased the regular Bounty to use as a multi-purpose paper towel, it would still be 90 cents more than Seventh Generation. Therefore, if saving trees is not your motivator, perhaps saving money is.
Maybe you are pretty product conscious. Maybe you are composting. That is a big improvement from landfill. However, why let something rot that didn't have to be used in the first place? In the words of zero-waster Bea Johnson, "refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and rot (and only in that order)."
If we are approaching the issue from this angle, it would be most sustainable to eliminate paper towel usage and opt for something reusable, such as cloth napkins, washcloths or towels. It will save so much money over time as well, and it looks so much classier! The next best option is to reduce either by implementing something reusable, evaluating when you actually need a paper towel versus when you don't, or even cutting the paper towel in half, which again saves you money.
Both of the above options allow for reuse by buying something that isn't disposable. Otherwise, paper towel isn't really able to withstand more than one use. Therefore, it's really best to just refuse or reduce. Now, we arrive at recycling and rotting, dead last, because these options are best after we have already reduced waste as much as possible.
For the sake of the trees, the landfills, your trash and your wallet, ditch the disposables.
