Tag Archives: paperless

Should You Use a Paper Towel Or Cloth Towel For That Mess?

In the quest to live a more environmentally-friendly life, there are a few questions that consistentlycome up for eco-minded folks.

One of these conundrums is the question of whether you should reach for a paper towel or a dish towel when presented with a spill or other small mess. Like so many of these arguments, the answer is, “it depends.”

On the surface, the answer to this question might seem simple.After all, paper towel waste is a big problem for Americans. “Here inthe U.S. we currently use more than 13 billion pounds ofpaper towelseach year and that number is growing steadily,” according to The Paperless Project. “This equals more than 3,000 tons ofpaper towel wastein the U.S. alone.”

Holy paper waste, Batman! Since cloth towels can be reused for years, it may seem like they’re the obvious green choice, but wait just one second…

Related Reading: 7 Best Eco-Alternatives to Throw-Away Paper Towels

Reusing textiles requires washing, and washing requires water (and in most cases electricity). Water is increasingly becoming a precious resource in post climate-change world(just ask California), and not everyone gets their electricity from clean sources like solar, wind or geothermal power. Depending on the age/efficiency of your washing machine, each load could sendaround 20 gallons of water down the drain, not to mentionthe energy used to dry it (unless you’re using a clothesline). There’s also the chance that cloth towels can harbor or even spread bacteria if not properly maintained. Yuck!

So what’s an earth-loving humanto do?

The answer is to employ a hybrid approach that reduces your paper towel consumption as much as possible (if every household in the U.S. used just one fewer70-sheet roll of paper towels,it would save 544,000 trees each year), and to use recycled paper towels when the situation calls for a disposable cleaning solution (every ton of recycled paper saves an estimated 7,000 gallons of water).

When To UseCloth Towels

1. Drying hands after washing
2. Drying clean dishes
3. Wiping crumbs/dust off surfaces
4. Soaking up water-only spills
5. Polishing furniture
6. Cleaning up after a meal/using as a napkin

When To Use Recycled Paper Towels

1. Spills that could spread germs/disease (think: raw egg, or liquid from raw meat)
2. Soaking upgrease from bacon/fried foods
3. Cleaning germy surfaces (think: toilet, diaper changing table, or litter box)
4. Cleaning toxic items (think: paintbrushes, glue spills, etc)

What do you think?Do you hate paper towels or do you think they have their place? Tell us in the comments!

Related Reading: 9 Paper Products You Should Give Up For Good

Images via Thinkstock

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Should You Use a Paper Towel Or Cloth Towel For That Mess?

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Earth Week Daily Action: Go Paperless

Paper is the bane of the planet’s existence. Mine, too.

Paper is pretty cheap in the scheme of things, so most people don’t think twice about how they use it. But every aspect of producing paper takes a significant environmental toll:

* Forests may be clear cut for the pulp used to make paper fibers.

* Water is polluted when the fibers are bleached and washed.

* A variety of toxic chemicals, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide are emitted by paper plants, polluting the air.

* Burning energy to power paper processing operations creates more air and water pollution and contributes to climate change.

* Throwing away paper adds to the huge piles of waste and trash we’re already trying to contend with.

The numbers back up these statements. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, discarded paper accounts for about 35 percent by weight of municipal solid waste (before recycling).

Pulp and paper are the third largest industrial polluters of air, water and land both in Canada and the U.S., says Environment Canada. Over 6.5 million trees were cut down to make 16 billion paper cups used by U.S. consumers only for coffee in 2006, using 4 billion U.S. gallons of water and generating 253 million pounds of waste.

Paper in all its forms is the biggest source of trash and clutter in my home. Unwanted junk mail piles up. Paper wrapping when I get a package. Food and consumer goods packaging when I shop. Receipts. Even though I’ve sworn to live paper-free, it’s almost impossible to do.

Still, I have cut down my paper use significantly. One day during Earth Week, turn your attention to getting rid of as much new paper coming into your home as you can.

Here’s How

* Cancel newspaper and magazine subscriptions and read online: I reduced my overall paper consumption probably by 20 pounds a weekan entire recycling bin’s worthwhen I started reading publications online. It saved me a lot of hassle, too, since dragging a recycling bin full of paper down to the street could be quite a chore. If you love reading the Sunday news on paper, make an exception for that one day’s delivery. Otherwise, go digital.

* Pay bills online: Most companies prefer to bill their customers digitally, since it saves them money and resources, too. Another advantage of online bill paying is that you can tie it directly to your checking account. You’ll see exactly how much money you have in your account before you pay each bill, which will reduce the likelihood that you’ll overdraw the account. Many businesses will offer a bonuslike increased airline miles, so some cash back transactionswhen you make the switch.

* Get off junk mail lists: Drop by this earlier post I wrote about “best ways to stop junk mail and control catalog clutter.” It offers everything you need to know to stop the onslaught of unwanted paper from coming to your mail box.

* Refuse receipts: Do you really need a receipt when you buy your groceries or get a tube of toothpaste from the drug store? Probably not. I’ve stopped accepting receipts when I shop unless it’s for a durable good, clothing or some other item I might want to return. This has been a great way to reduce paper clutter not just in my home, but in my purse, as well. Some stores and many banks now let you elect to have an electronic receipt sent to your email address if you really need the record of what you’ve bought.

* Share documents electronically: Minimize what you need to share with others by filing and emailing digital documents rather than creating paper ones.

* Use mobile apps and email to recordtickets, purchases, and appointments: There’s no need to print out a paper version of a ticket when you can pull it up on your phone.

* Use your own reusable carry out containers: Going to your favorite restaurant, or even the fast food joint up the street? Take your own reusable containersso you won’t need their wrapping and packing.

* Switch to a reusable grocery bag: You’ll have no need for throwaway, single-use bags when you use your own reusable cloth one.

* Take a reusable mug when you get coffee: You’ll avoid the throwaway paper cup, the lid and the cardboard sleeve that protects your hand from the hot cup.

Need More Suggestions? See These Related Posts on Care2:

4 Eco-Friendly Ways to Manage Your Money
11 Ways to Reduce Your Garbage

25 Ways to Reduce Food Waste

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Earth Week Daily Action: Go Paperless

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Tips For Going Paperless in The Office

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Tips For Going Paperless in The Office

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6 Tips For Creating And Maintaining A Paperless Workplace

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6 Tips For Creating And Maintaining A Paperless Workplace

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The Paperless Office Has Beaten Out the Paperless Bathroom After All

Mother Jones

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Back when I was in the document imaging business, we joked that the paperless office would become a reality about the same time as the paperless bathroom. In other words, even those of us in the biz didn’t really believe in the hype of the paperless office.

I haven’t paid much attention to any of this for well over a decade, but today John Quiggin comes forward to tell me that, in fact, the paperless office is finally starting to come true:

Paper consumption peaked in the late 1990s and has fallen sharply since 2005….The annual rate of decline (-0.9 per cent) is unimpressive in itself, but striking when compared to the growth rate of 5.7 per cent observed from 1985 to 1999, at a time when talk of the paperless office was particularly prevalent. Compared to the ‘Business as Usual’ extrapolation of the previous growth rate, office paper consumption has declined by around 40 per cent.

….Of course, the “paperless office” myth wasn’t just a prediction that digital communications would replace paper one day. It was a sales pitch for a top-down redesign of work processes, which, for the reasons given by Sellen and Harper, was never going to work.

That’s interesting, though not too surprising. It takes a long time for habits to change, and sometimes you just have to wait for old generations to retire and allow new ones to take their place. I imagine that 20- and 30-somethings are way more comfortable with a purely digital information flow than folks in their 40s and 50s, and that’s probably responsible for much of the decline in office paper use since 2005.

As an aside, I should add that top-down redesign of work processes sometimes gets a bad rap that it doesn’t deserve. For casual work processes it doesn’t work that well, and the hype of the 90s really was overdone. But there are also lots of clerical production processes that are highly rule-bound and can be redesigned just fine. Insurance claims agents these days almost never see a piece of paper, for example. It’s all scanned and indexed so that everything—both paper and digital documents—can be viewed on screen instantly.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if even casual work processes become far more digital in the fairly near future, especially as software gets better, cloud storage becomes commonplace, and high-speed connectivity becomes all but universal. If you can look up movie times on your phone, you can keep track of schedules and due dates on your phone too. That sounds like something of a pain to me, but I’m 55. I’ll bet if I were 25 it would sound a whole lot more attractive than being forced to work with messy bundles of paper that can’t be searched and have to be carried around everywhere to be useful.

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The Paperless Office Has Beaten Out the Paperless Bathroom After All

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