Monthly Feature | The Unpaper Towel

    This month I am shouting out the Unpaper Towel, the company, and the idea behind it!
    According to EPA, paper makes up the largest share of municipal waste in the US. Included in that are disposable paper towels.
    Paper towels are popular everywhere these days. We, as a society, are used to disposing of most things after one use. Our parents, and the people before them did not do that (mostly because of money and accessibility where I'm from).
    In 2017 in the US, about 18 million dollars were spent on paper towels per 1 million people. This is by far the most money amongst all the countries in the world. The second place went to France, where about 9 million dollars were spent per 1 million people.
    I noticed that difference in my time over in the United States. And I have to admit, at first I went with it. It makes life very easy. You spill something - grab a paper towel, clean it up, and throw it away. DONE! You never have to think about that piece of paper again. But you should, and here's why.

Reasons to change your disposable paper towel habit

1. To make 1 ton of paper towels, approximately 17 trees and 20 000 gallons (~75 000 liters) of water are used. If you opted for the recycled paper towels, you would remove the trees from the equation and save about 7000 gallons of water per ton of paper made.
2. Paper towels, before being used, are very easy to recycle. After we use them, though, they can only be sent to landfill.
3. This one is just me asking you if you really need something disposable, where we already have a ton of stuff we could use that are reusable. Everyone has towels at home, or some sort of old clothes (preferably cotton) you could cut up into rags. I just think they are so unnecessary in the quantity we use them.

Disclaimer: I still use paper towels, but it takes me like 9 months to work through one regular roll of them.

NOW for the feature!

    "The Unpaper Towel. 12 towels snapped together placed around your ordinary paper towel holder. /.../ Completely washable, completely reusable." 

    This is how the product is described on their website. 

    The Unpaper Towels are such a fun way to spice up your kitchen while being more eco-friendly. Check out their website for more!

    And remember, it is an investment that will save you money later, so don't be scared off by the price of $55. You pay that once to never have to buy disposable paper towels ever again!

The idea

    As I mentioned earlier, I am not just shouting out the company and the product, but also the fantastic idea behind it!

    I know not everyone can pay for this product, and another problem is that they only ship to North America.

    So if you're not from North America or you do not have the opportunity to pay for these, there are other options. 

    If you search Pinterest for Unpaper Towels, you get a ton of DIY tutorials on how to make these yourself. 

    AND if you are like me and are not great at sewing, you don't need rags to be fancy! They're for cleaning up, they can look funky!

    In my home, we just cut up our old towels into square pieces and use those until they get too dirty to keep using.

    Be creative! It is your house, and that makes you in charge, no one can tell you that you're doing it wrong!

    So this is it for my Monthly Feature for April 2020. 

    This month, I encourage you to try and use less paper towels. You can just start by using 2 pieces instead of 3 and work towards stopping entirely.

 

Stay safe, and I hope you have a beautiful day!