I guess you could say I found something that I just feel the need to yell about. I know I'm probably sounding a bit redundant here but I have to talk about this paper towel project again. It just dawned on me today as I refilled the paper-towel holder in the kitchen that it has been sometime since I've posted an update. So I started this project back in May. Starting with a $57 investment in reusable kitchen rags a shelf and a $12~12 roll case of Bounty Select-a-size. In the last 5 months we have managed to only use 7 of those original 12 rolls. Here's the kicker folks, we would have gone through nearly 60 rolls, costing around $60, at our rate of normal consumption prior to the start of this project.

Eureka! The project has paid for itself and we have 5 rolls left in the storage room. At this rate we could reduce our paper-towel usage to just 3 cases a year. I think that's awesome. And believe me, I'm not suggesting the end of paper-towel use here folks, just a helpful, more renewable, longer lasting alternative. Paper-towels will always have a home in our kitchen, it's just that they have a different role now, namely the nastier of the jobs. Like raw food clean up and cat puke..gross!

My Wife did the laundry today. As I was putting the kitchen rags up on their shelf I got to thinking about how easy it was to make the transition. I'm not sure about other peoples paper-towel usage but I suppose we would have been an example of a high usage family. Our new towels are all still in great shape and I could honestly see us getting many years use out of them. That's a lot of savings and even more in the end as the price of everything seems to be getting ever more expensive.

I think what we need to do is get some people on board with this idea. Wouldn't it be cool to see major paper towel companies start marketing this to the masses. They would even get the benefit of being able to transition there production away from the Tree based paper market to a more sustainable and faster growing cotton crop or dare I say Hemp. Well, maybe one day.

One another note, I feel the need to give shout out to my new hometown of Warren, Pa up in the northwest part of the state. The city has recently started a very solid recycling program or should I say expanded upon there system. Warren is now recycling 5 major groups of recyclables free of charge to all city residents. They even provided free delivery of free containers to keep your stuff in. The groups are Paper, Plastic, Tin-Aluminum and two types of glass. I do wish they did more in the way of plastics as they only except types 1 and 2. Man was I surprised to here how hard it can be to find places that take all the other types of plastic. I've noticed that since we received our recycle containers a few months back that we have reduced our throw aways considerably. Where as we would generally have 3 to 4 filled trash bags a week we have now gotten consistently down to 1 to 2 bags. 

These are just drops in a bucket I know and the bucket is big....Lord let it rain.

Peace y'all,

~Jay~