Think you can’t get along without your paper plates, napkins, and paper towels? Think again. You most definitely can… and probably should try it. I know it’s possible since we’ve been doing just fine without them! Well, most paper goods, that is. Here’s what we’ve done thus far…
Paper plates, bowls, and cups
By and large we rarely used paper plates around our house unless we had friends with messy kids over. These days they never see the light of day anyway. Regardless, any and all paper plates (and bowls) we had lying around have been rounded up and saved for a real emergency. These days it’s reusable plates and bowls at all times.
The same can be said for the few plastic cups we occasionally used. Honestly, there’s no reason to use them around the house anyway and since we have plenty of reusable cups it was a no-brainer switch. The only other thing we’re thinking of implementing was some sort of a daily tag that says who’s cup it is as we’re inevitably washing perfectly good cups for no reason because nobody can remember whose cup is whose. This certainly adds to unnecessary dishwasher cycles.
Paper towels and napkins
Paper towels quickly got put away and saved for another day since 99% of the time we can just use dish towels. Fortunately, we have plenty of towels to use and since they’re easily added to any load of laundry it’s no big deal to use them at will.
Napkins, on the other hand, were a bit more difficult to get rid of, but mostly just because I was wholly accustomed to paper napkins. That said, we did have a dozen or so cloth napkins (I have no idea why) and so we started using them.
I should note that the cloth napkins get used fast and since we don’t do laundry everyday now we’re finding that we try to reuse napkins where possible. There are occasional meals, however, that don’t lend well to cloth napkins, such as BBQ meals (not like we get many of those these days) and so paper napkins still find use on rare occasion. I’d imagine we’ll eventually phase those out but since we still have several packages… we can splurge.
Facial tissue and toilet paper
These we have yet to give up. I just don’t see myself ever wanting to use a family cloth. And, even though I tried to keep a decent stock of toilet paper around the house, that stuff goes quick and as luck would have it we were “low” when our personal SHTF occurred. Let this be a reminder to you fine folks: STOCK MORE TOILET PAPER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE USING!
You know how they say you should cut as much wood as you think you’ll need to keep your fire going all night and then double (or triple) that? Well, it’s equally good advice where toilet paper is concerned.
As for facial tissue, we don’t use that very often and we already had several boxes of kleenex as it was so we’re ok here for a while. That said, it *may* be worthwhile to look into purchase a dozen or two handkerchiefs in the future. In a pinch I guess we could use a cloth napkin, towel, or bandanna but we’re not there yet.
Final thoughts
Overall, I’d say we’ve had some easy successes here. Most of the paper goods you think you need to live are simply unnecessary. Use my experiences and reconsider your own needs… you may find a few things you can do and even save a few bucks. If you have any good suggestions, I’m all ears. Thank you.
Leave a Reply