I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the way I became like young Henry Hill in Goodfellas, the kid who didn’t understand the value of a kitchen apron in the eyes of his boss. You may remember this scene: As a teenager, with his compassion for human suffering still intact, he wraps one clean apron after another over the bloody hands of a gunshot victim lying outside a pizzeria.
“You’re such an asshole. You spent eight… “Put an apron on this guy,” says his mob boss Thady Cicero, played by Frank DiLeo. “I do not know who you are. What is the problem. I need to toughen this guy up. “
Henry’s extravagance can be blamed on basic compassion, a trait that has no real value in the underworld he travels through. I have no such excuse for my unhealthy relationship with paper towels: I spin roll after roll as if a group of gunshot victims were waiting for my service on the porch.
I use paper towels for every task imaginable: cleaning up crumbs from the table, drying my hands, cleaning the coffee machine, polishing stainless steel surfaces, wiping my mouth while eating, soaking up the crocodile tears I shed for the environment.
I became what I hated: spendthrift Americans, people with enough disposable income to maintain order in their lives through life on Earth, be it plants or animals.
Nothing can make your head spin faster than trying to determine the environmental impact of paper towels. The water consumption for rags and paper towels obviously amounts to one wash. Individually, paper towels leave a small carbon footprint, but collectively they contribute to deforestation and global warming. Major paper product manufacturers still rely on virgin forest fibers, although industry officials say paper towels are “made from recycled paper or renewable resources—trees are planted to meet future demand for paper and wood products and to eliminate carbon dioxide as they grow.” growth.” atmosphere of that time.”
The truth is, when it comes to paper towels, you can argue whichever side you want. But the facts seem irrefutable to me: used paper towels are not recyclable (although they can be composted); Replanting trees will also increase carbon dioxide levels, which we cannot afford.
As The New York Times reported in early 2020, “A tree planted this year will have little impact on carbon sequestration over the next decade, a period that many scientists consider critical for combating climate change.”
For these reasons—and also because my boss asked me to—I didn’t use wipes for a week. Or better said, I try not to use them during the week. When I automatically grabbed paper towels to clean the dog food bowl on the first day, I was worried that the task would be more difficult than I expected. Some habits are as ingrained as offal: they’re so integral to everyday life that you don’t even think about them.
Because of these mindless practices, some people ban paper towels from their homes or at least hide them under the sink, just as heavy smokers keep cigarettes away from them in an attempt to kick the habit. I was reluctant to go down this path for one reason: I knew there would be some messes that I would never clean up with a kitchen towel, like the occasional “accidents” that happened to our maladapted pooch. By “sometimes” I mean every day.
My first step is to get my kitchen organized with some cute designer towels, like my family’s gingerbread recipe, or the towels I bought for my wife at a small craft store in Frederick, MD. The latter features a cartoon dog with a wagging tail, with the caption: “Waggy drives me crazy.” I really don’t like scrubbing the bacon with a gift that doubles as an inside joke between the couple. I mean, I might as well put on a wedding dress and do this job.
My second step was to buy a stack of flour sack tea towels. They are very cheap, highly absorbent, very durable and can handle any mess. I set one aside just for making coffee: tossing wet filters and coffee grounds in the trash, cleaning the espresso machine’s group head, and wiping up the inevitable drips from our bodies’ daily intake of caffeine. I quickly became accustomed to the idea that this towel was the equivalent of a tackle dummy: it withstood any punishment and kept coming back for more.
Slowly (perhaps intuitively) I developed a strategy for when to use paper towels instead of dish towels. If the mess is coming from the dog’s mouth (or other parts of the dog’s body) or is so large that it requires multiple dish towels (and rinsing those multiple towels multiple times), I default to paper towels. The latter only happened a few times. Worst of all, some egg yolks that had been sitting in the refrigerator awaiting my wife’s next bake somehow escaped from the glass bowl and spit out most of the top shelf, sticking to every surface imaginable. The napkin was my best friend that day.
But other than those messes and “accidents,” I rely on tea towels for everything. I even forced myself to check how committed I was to the project. I fried a half-pound burger in a cast iron skillet, added a few knobs of butter, and wiped up any grease splatters with a napkin. I cooked two batches of St. Louis-style ribs in an offset smoker, draping a kitchen towel over my shoulders to dry my hands and protect all surfaces from uncontrolled chafing of the ribs. I even fry thick bacon in a pan and leave the bacon strips on the plate instead of paper or towels.
Sometimes towels just need to be rinsed under a warm water tap. Other times, they need to be thrown into the laundry room. No matter what, these cheap flour sack towels always come out right. (By the way, I also bought bamboo towels, which are reusable and very eco-friendly, as anyone with bamboo in their backyard can attest. They come in rolls, like paper towels, but have a felt texture, which is not the same feel you want when wiping your mouth).
Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome when switching from paper towels to cloth napkins is psychological. Americans—and I say Americans because, as a nation, paper towel usage dwarfs the rest of the planet—have a habit of not wanting to see evidence of the mess we create. We like to throw dirty things in the trash and never think about them again. We throw away the mess and let others deal with it.
Clean the kitchen with a cloth and tidy it up yourself. The marks can last from a few minutes to several days, depending on how quickly you wash the towels. The evidence may be hanging in your kitchen like an uninvited guest. The sooner you accept these dirty anachronisms, the sooner you can break your fabric habit.
I can speak from experience. I’m now in my third week and during this time, even with the dog accidents, I’ve only used half a roll of paper towels. Come to think of it, I might even start using an old beach towel to combat these messes.
Grocery Shopping: Make your grocery shopping greener • Take advantage of farm boxes or CSA shared produce.
Work with what you have: Use what you already have in your fridge and freezer to waste less and eat better. • How to use peels, stems and more in cooking. • How to freeze fresh vegetables while maintaining their best quality.
Post time: Jun-03-2024