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!

MONTHLY FEATURE | Ecosia

    This is the first of many monthly features you are going to see on my blog. It is a series I am starting, where every month I pick out a company, an item, a person, or just a habit to highlight and talk about. This month the feature is going to be about an online search engine, Ecosia, and why I have been using it for more than 2 years now.

    How often do you search for stuff on the Internet using Google or any other search engine? What if I told you there is a search engine out there, where you, typing in a keyword and pressing enter will help them plant trees. Yes, Ecosia makes it THAT simple. Before I get any further, I wanted to mention that this post is NOT sponsored by them. This is me genuinely loving this tool and hoping you will consider switching over as well.

    A couple of years ago, when I had just learned about the zero waste movement, I found a video by one of my favorite Youtubers, Shelbizleee, where she talked about 7 ways to reduce climate change. And one of the things she spoke about was that if I hadn't already, I should really consider switching over to Ecosia. So, naturally, I did as I was told and haven't looked back since.

   I can imagine you guys have some questions, and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability, so let's get into it.

What exactly is Ecosia?
    Ecosia is a search engine like any other, it looks and works like Google, but with every search, you are helping them make money to fund planting trees in countries and areas that need it the most. Ecosia was founded in 2009 and quickly gained attention for the exciting concept. In 10 years, they have been able to plant more than 60 million trees, a number that has increased by 26 million within the past year. When I first heard of Ecosia, I thought it is too good to be true and that it must be a scam. I then did my research, and they are very transparent with everything they do and seem like an ethical company genuinely invested in the future of our planet.

How does it work?
    I have gotten this question about the search engine from everyone I have told about it. And I get it, where do they get all this money to be able to pay people, plant trees, and just stay in business for that long. The short answer is - the ads. Basically, when you type in a search keyword and press enter, you will see the results, like in any other search engine. Well, as you know, in every search engine, the first couple of results are always sponsored advertisements. That means the company that owns the search engine gets money to present those ads in the search, and usually even more money if a person clicks on it and actually buys something, for example. Ecosia takes the profit and uses it to plant trees. And I 100% trust them because they release their monthly financial reports for transparency. For example, in January 2020, Ecosia earned over 2 million euros, out of which half was invested in tree planting. The other half of the income went to spreading the word, operational costs, other longer environmental investments (they just opened their own solar plant to power the searches). So, for that money, they were able to plant more than 1.3 million trees, all because millions of people used their engine to search the web. They have estimated that enough money is earned every 45 searches to plant a tree. There is a cute search counter so you could know how many trees you have helped plant. As an example, I have done more than 4000 searches, which means I alone have helped plant close to a hundred trees just by surfing the web.

Does the actual search even work well?
    My answer to this question is that for the purposes I'm using it, I haven't noticed issues. But, when I was in college and was doing actual research to write papers and other schoolwork, I would usually use Google. However, I can undoubtedly say that it is an awesome search engine, that can keep up with Google in everyday surfing.

But I don't want to type Ecosia.org in just to be able to search for something...
    That's not an issue! You can install a browser extension on your browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari). That way, if you type a word in, it will automatically search using Ecosia and not Google or any other engine. They also have an app for your phone.

How do I get started?
    I am going to link the step-by-step installation process in a little bit, but first, I advise you to go and check out what Ecosia says about themselves on the website. I believe in listening to others, but I still think everyone should do their own research to really be sure of their decisions.
    Now that you've read about them, watched some videos perhaps, it's time to install the browser extension. Click on the browser name you are interested in installing Ecosia on to see the instructions:

• Safari
• Firefox
• Chrome
• Edge

    I hope I was able to convince you to make this tiny change that will go a long way for the planet. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask me, or go to Ecosia.org and check out the Frequently Asked Questions, which are super helpful. 

    Bye for now, and happy searching!