Ditching Disposables

I first heard about the Ditch the Disposable challenge back in 2008. I made napkins out of old t-shirts.

It's always been on my mind since then, in one way or another, what things are reusable, or could be reusable that I am throwing away?

Thought it is one that many people don't feel comfortable with, toilet paper was the second thing I worked on ditching the disposables with. Family Cloth is the name I found, and have used for it. It's not my favorite name, but it works.

I basically took terricloth and just zigzagged the edges, got a bucket with a lid, and away I went. For people who don't want to hear about my number 1 and 2 wiping, skip past these stars and onto the next stars.

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The terrycloth is really nice for wiping poo. It just is. I had to use toilet paper the other day, and felt like it was just smearing things all over, instead of actually wiping it off. Family cloth though, is just excellent. Superb.

The terrycloth is a bit less effective for me wiping when I pee. My last ones were better, so I think it must be the kind of terrycloth I have. As you will read below, I am planning on getting some bamboo terrycloth, and I want to make some cloths out of that specifically for urine.

The cloths also work very well for blood when I'm on my period.

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To help with the smell, I will sometimes pour a bit of vinegar in the bottom of my bucket.

Now, my new ambition is to replace paper towels. I never really used them a lot before, but with cats, spills happen a lot more often, and so they are just a lot more necessary.

I saw something on pinterest that was a bit like this, but having had experience with my terrycloth not always being the best at absorption, I wanted to look at other options. What I've settled on is bamboo terrycloth. I got a sample in the mail yesterday, and it feels so nice, and it is supposed to be like 50% more absorbent than cotton. So score on that count too.

My cheapy side says I should just find something cheap and use that, but when I went around the shops, all they had was bright pink terrycloth, and I was like, nah I'd rather get something nice and make it look nice in my kitchen, so my plan for these is to use the bamboo terrycloth and then use food-fabric for the backings for ones that will be kitchen use, and then something else for cleaning/bathroom use. But yeah, so at some point I'll order that stuff and make those.

And just a word out there, because I got a lot of bamboo samples in this pack - bamboo fabric feels amazing. The growth of bamboo is also good for the environment. The process for turning it into fabric is not the most environmentally friendly in general, although it can be - just more research needs to be done on the process for the particular one you're buying, if that is something important to you.

So here's to ditching disposables! I've ditched a few. More to come as time wears on!