Ditching Disposables

This subject came up recently on a Facebook page I'm on about food storage.  The original question was how many rolls of paper towel do you store to have a year's supply on hand.  My answer, as well as the answer of a number of other people was none.  Actually we have 2 rolls in the house that we originally bought for my mother-in-law when we lived with her and she sent with us when we moved out, but they aren't really for storage purposes per se.  They just are still kind of here.  We use cloths to wipe up spills and messes, and with three to four kids roaming the premises at any time, we certainly have our share of those!  If something is super nasty, like the baby has a two-sy accident on the floor between diapers or someone vomits, well, I still clean it up with cloth, but it goes in the diaper pail for the hardcore cleaning instead of the regular laundry.  Some of the people seemed shocked by this and one fellow even asked if the people that were so adamantly against paper towels used disposable or cloth feminine hygiene products.  My answer was cloth.

When people think of getting rid of disposable products in their house, they usually go for the easiest ones first.  Paper plates and paper towels are amongst the first to go.  But then it gets trickier for some people.  Cloth diapers is a logical step for parents of little ones looking to save some serious money and/or the planet, but even many people who use cloth diapers still use disposable liners or wipes.  I just skip the liners and use some moistened cut up receiving blankets for wipes (stored in a disposable wipe container someone gave me years ago).  Rather than any sort of disposable lining to the diaper pail, I have a cloth one that I just throw in the wash right with the dirty diapers.  Really, I'd like to see the family go to "family cloth" and have everyone use the cloth wipes (because, really, a moistened and cleaned wipe is more sanitary than dry paper!), but my husband isn't quite ready for it yet and so the kids are resistant to it as well.  Just think how much that would save though, if we never had to buy toilet paper again!

Back to the cloth feminine products, or moon pads as they are frequently and poetically referred to, they weren't at all expensive (nearly free!) and I haven't had to buy lady products in over 7 years!  I got the pattern from Many Moons Alternatives and quickly hand sewed some, since I'm not so handy with the sewing machine.  There are a few adjustments I'll make to the next batch I make to make them more suitable for me, but all in all, I highly recommend them!  A lot of my female complaints that time of the month lessened or quit completely when I switched too!  I totally did not expect that!

© Many Moons Alternatives, used with permission

So, regardless of where you are on the money saving/environmental continuum, congratulations for making it this far and all of our descendants thank you.  But could you do more?  Is there some other paper product in your life now that you could eliminate a need for?  What's holding you back?