Saturday, April 9, 2011

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?

8 comments:

  1. I try,I really do,but my dear hubby insists that he needs paper plates and paper towels....we used to go through a lot of paper towel in the summer,the dog drools horribly as we used to have to wipe him down whenever he came back inside,but now we just shave his coat short(in his full fur it's more than a foot long)and he doesn't drool nearly as much,keeping his crate downstairs where it's cooler has helped a lot as well.

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  2. Would it change his mind if you tracked exactly how much you are spending on those things and pointed out how he could afford something he wants sooner if he stopped with the paper stuff?

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  3. Kudos, to you, Thrifty Mama. You have come up with a solution that works very well for you. It would be very nice if we could all move towards not using disposables...baby steps is a good approach. My husband and I do not use disposable paper plates or napkins or cups...even when we have people over for a get-together. We use reusable and sturdy plastic party plates and cups for the kids and ceramic or glass for the adults. And we use cloth napkins. We wash all of our dishes afterwards...plastic and ceramic/glass. Sometimes some of the guests help us. It actually adds to the party atmosphere...

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  4. When I moved in with my fella, to my horror I discovered he and his kids used paper plates at every meal! They had perfectly good dishes and a working dishwasher, they just used the paper plates "because it's easier". That ended real quick when I informed that paper plates were "Fine....just FINE" as long as they were composted--which meant that at the end of the meal everyone had to tear their plates into tiny pieces and go mix it into the compost heap themselves. We haven't had a paper plate in the house after the first week I was here...

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  5. For those of us who live in apartments and/or don't have quite as easy access to laundry facilities, I swear by the Divacup! Especially if you're used to tampons or ride a bike a lot or swim and would prefer things to be a little less external. I made one $25 purchase 6 years ago, and I'm still loving the cup!

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  6. I'm not sure it would....the paper towels I pay usually around $0.09 a roll for,but the paper plates are what gets me..I think my best defense against them is to just shop without him.lol.

    I'm thinking of just go back to doing the majority of the shopping when he is at work,then he doesn't have to chance to put things in the cart.He's kids of like a giant 7 year old sneaking cookies into the cart when mom isn't looking.

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  7. I totally avoid paper plates and cups except at our once a year, end of the school year hello summer bash. Paper towels only get bought occasionally otherwise my kids just blow through them. As far and reusable girl products there is no way in hell my teen girls would be talked into that. lol

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  8. Maybe they could be convinced if you used the money that you would have spent on them for something they WANT. Or maybe they'd want the icky disposable things (seriously, they'd rather have that stuff sitting around in the trash? Something else to think about) so much they'd pay for them themselves, in which case you at least save money on it! lol

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