One of the last things in our home to get sustainably replaced was the paper towels. It is so hard sometimes to let go of something so simple, but I can proudly say we have not bought paper towels in a month! The way we phased them out was by creating several stations of towels and rags for use.
We started with the cleaning rags kept in a bin under sink, these are mostly old towel scraps, socks, ruined T-shirts cut into squares etc. We use these for grimy messes that need cleaning and occasionally for dusting/surface cleaning. Once these rags are beyond use we don’t tend to wash or reuse them since their life has already featured multiple reuses by this point.
The second group are napkins, these are smaller square soft towels around 4-6 in. big that we may use at dinner for finger cleaning, runny noses, or for a small coffee spill. Whenever these towels get dirty we have a special little laundry bin just for towels on our tea cart. I have maybe 10-15 of these small towels.
The third group is the larger towels which are on the roll that previously hosted their paper counter parts. These are the same 10-12 in. size normal paper towels are. We primarily use these for wiping kitchen counters throughout the day, medium spills and messes, and sometimes Ill use them to hold a snack when I don’t want to dirty a dish. When they are dirty they also go into the small laundry bin. We have 10 of these, they came in a beautiful rainbow set at the shop.
Finally the classic Tea Towel. Having a good tea towel is critical to living. We keep 2 on the Oven handle in the Kitchen at all times. We like to put one under the cutting board before making dough or next to sink so the water doesn’t get everywhere. I also specifically got two more adsorbent medium sized towels specifically for when I spill something since I am quite clumsy. We have about 10 tea towels total.
I usually do a quick low water wash once a week of all napkins and towels, depending on how messy we are we usually empty out the towels and napkins entirely after 7 days and use at least 4 tea towels. I want to be honest that this was one of the most difficult things for us to get used to switching to, I sometimes would open the trash to see someone had put my cute piggy napkin on top. But on the other hand I get some very sweet compliments on my napkins when I am out and our very small trash bin has gone from being filled weekly (mostly with paper towel trash) to being almost every other week!