Simple Suggestion # 123... Use rags

Here's an easy one that came to me when I was at a friend's house last week. The kids were playing in the basement, and a glass of water got spilled on the laminate. Said kids came running upstairs and grabbed a few paper towels. They came back a second time for more paper towels. The third time they took the entire roll. And I wondered how much water was in that glass. I also thought about our trees, and about this:

In our broom closet we have an old drawer from a piece of IKEA furniture that fell apart, and it has become our rag box. In it are scraps from holey old cotton t-shirts, chunks of frayed towels, bits of thin flannel sheets, and other odds and sods that work a lot better than paper towels for wiping up messes, dusting furniture or washing the car. We've banished paper towels from our house, and don't hesitate to toss out these rags if they get into "unwashable" messes. Unlike paper towels, they are usually reused many times before heading to our city's amazing Waste Management Centre, where they are composted (cotton composts well given the right conditions).

Paper towels are really an unnecessary convenience, and they use too many trees. Why not use a rag rather than consume the resources required to make paper towels, energy included? It makes a simple sort of sense.

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.