My January One Small Change inspired by Hip Mountain Mama was to cut our paper towel usage. You can read about our cut-the-paper-towel-usage-journey here. To make a long story short, we were successful, and we don’t use nearly as many paper towels. (Although, I must confess, I do use them to clean my beloved Le Cruset 12-inch cobalt blue cast iron fry pan.) But, our severely decreased usage means we still have this; see above.

What do we throw away when we use all 1080 paper towel sheets?

• 12 shrink wrap wrappers
• 12 cardboard tubes
• one HUGE plastic wrapper that held all 12 rolls and is large enough to picnic on.
• oh, and one thousand and eighty (1080) paper towels!

What do we throw away when we use dish towels, miracle cloths, washies, and cloth napkins?

• The cardboard box that holds 42 loads of detergent.

42 laundry loads is a lot of dish towels which, unlike a paper towel, we use to clean up more than one mess. Some of what we toss out is recycleable or reuseable. However, I can only tolerate so many paper towel tube telescopes, loud speakers, and brandishing weaponry that seeks to threaten my wall decor. Why even choose to consume more packaging if there is a good-for-your-lifestyle option that means less paper and plastic in your shopping cart?

After this stash, I don’t think we will be buying that much throw-away packaging ever again. And that feels pretty good.

Stay tuned for 16 more days of discussion about choosing to purchase less packaging. Up next, meat…