Question Wednesday

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to tear off those financial questions.

Today, my question is whether you use paper towels — or, more specifically, in what situation you use paper towels vs. cloth rags, napkins, or other alternatives.

I’ve been trying to reduce both my paper towel and my Clorox disinfecting wipe consumption for the past month or so, thanks to YNAB making it perfectly clear how much these products cost me — but I’m not sure I’ll go completely off disposable cleaning products. Although I’ve gotten better at doing the whole “squirt homemade soap+white vinegar+water mixture and wipe off with cloth towel” thing, there are some situations where a paper towel seems like the by-far best tool for the job.

For example: the other day I accidentally glopped some cottage cheese onto the counter, and if I’d gone the cloth towel route I would have had to toss a tablespoon’s worth of cottage cheese into the hamper, and even though I have a separate hamper section just for towels, that’s, like, food sitting there until I do the next round of laundry, and I’ve lived in too many apartments where food sitting there equals bugs.

Whereas the paper towel can take the cottage cheese directly into the sealed trashcan. (So could my fingers, I guess.)

Anyway, I thought I’d ask you all about this because I just read The Atlantic’s Americans Are Weirdly Obsessed With Paper Towels and I figured I’d see if Billfold readers were obsessed as well.

Discuss — or ask your own questions — in the comments.

Photo credit: Dean Hochman (cropped), CC BY 2.0.

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