In honor of Thanksgiving and all the insanity that will potentially take place in the kitchen, I felt compelled to find at least one way to minimize the amount of waste involved in cooking, cleaning, and general turkey-day preparations. As a person who is thankful for nature (it's the hippie in me), I will no longer be using paper towels on a daily basis. It’s a total waste of paper; we could easily use regular towels, old rags, or destroyed T-shirts to do the dirty work. I probably use way too many paper towels myself, so I am giving all of us a fun little test. I challenge you, on whatever day you read this (if you are feeling particularly adventurous, try it on Thanksgiving!), to use ONLY 1 PAPER TOWEL today. Think of how much paper you will save if you only use 1 as opposed to multiple. It's mind boggling.
If you just can't part from your beloved paper towels, try replacing the regular ones with recycled products. According to the National Resources Defense Council, “If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 544,000 trees.” That’s a ton of trees. Some products even have chlorine in them to make them brighter – who wants to wipe their mouth on a chemical infused napkin? Not I.
So remember - when you buy paper towels, TP, or napkins, go for the eco-friendly brands like Seventh Generation or Green Forest. They are slightly more expensive, but get over it, because I’m sure we could all spare an extra dollar to help the environment. Have a heart. And have a very Happy Thanksgiving.
Here’s a link to the NRDC website with some great info on recycled paper products - http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp
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