Go Cloth! How to Replace Disposable Paper and Plastic Products with Cloth

Why cloth?

Until 100 years ago, there were no disposable paper or plastic products for cleaning or personal use. These disposables deplete resources, pollute the environment, and clog landfills on a staggering scale for mere seconds of usefulness. Cloth products work better than disposables in most cases and are reusable for years, saving resources, energy, and money for individuals and societies. If made of organic fibers, cloth products can be much less damaging to produce than paper or plastic, and are biodegradable when made of natural fibers. Here's how to return to a sane and sustainable lifestyle.

What to look for

Table linens:

Cloth napkins are stronger, more absorbent, and infinitely more elegant that paper. This is a really easy switch to make. For the price of a package of paper napkins, you can buy an excellent quality cotton or linen napkin or two that will last for decades. I have a dozen basic cotton napkins that are going strong after 15 years of 3-meals-a-day use and show no signs of quitting. You can, of course, have multiple sets and styles for different occasions, dining areas, or even family members. Cloth napkins are easy and lightweight to pack with lunches or picnics, and they won't blow away at the slightest breeze. Cloth placemats and tablecloths are also most attractive and long-lasting, and most people use these already. Table linens are available at any home goods retailer. Napkins, placemats, and tablecloths can be used until they are visibly soiled, or for about a week, and then washed.

Cleaning:

Hotel-quality cotton terry-cloth washcloths or hospital-quality huck towels run circles around paper towels for all cleaning jobs. I bought two dozen and keep stacks in the kitchen, in the playroom, and on each floor of the house. They soak up spills, pick up debris, scrub walls, counters, and floors, rub out stains, and everything else much better and more quickly than paper towels.



Cotton flannel cloths are excellent for more delicate cleaning jobs, such as mirrors, glass, and dusting. I use these soft flannel wipes for lots of things- see Personal Care below.  BumGenius and Bumkins make nice, long-lasting wipes. You can also recycle old clothing into cleaning rags: t-shirts and sweatshirts make especially good cleaning cloths. Simply cut them into 12-inch squares and start cleaning.

Wool dusters or cloths are great for dusting because of the static charge of the wool fiber. I use a wool duster and shake it out after use. Microfiber cloths also have a static charge due to the polyester fiber, but they are made of petroleum in a very polluting and unsustainable way, and are not biodegradable.



Cotton or linen kitchen or tea towels are wonderful for lighter-duty kitchen uses, such as drying dishes, wiping hands, covering resting food, and so forth. New or vintage, kitchen towels are attractive and very durable. Waffle-weave or other texture weaves provide great absorbency, while smooth linen or flour sack cotton give a lint-free shine to glassware. Like table linens. kitchen towels are widely available.


Cotton dishrags work great, last much longer, and are more sanitary than sponges. I use waffle-weave rags for the light scrubbing effect, and a natural-bristle scrub brush for tougher jobs. Dishrags can be thrown in the wash every few days to sanitize, instead of sitting damp on your sink for months like a sponge. They also make great household cleaning rags when you don't need something as heavy as a washcloth. Check Amazon for options if your local hame goods retailers don't carry dishrags.



A fabric mop head works better and lasts much longer than a sponge mop or, of course, a single-use swiffer sheet. I love my Rubbermaid Reveal mop with washable wet and dry mopping pads. The pads are microfiber, but you can order cotton terry-cloth and crocheted pads from Etsy to fit the mop if you prefer natural fibers.

Shopping:

By now, we've all heard about reusable bags instead of single-use plastic or paper bags. I am thrilled with my Ecobags organic cotton canvas bags. They are like new after ten years of daily use for all shopping- not just groceries- as well as traveling, visiting, the library, basically anytime I need to take anything anywhere. They hold more and are much stronger than even reusable plastic bags, and the straps fit over my shoulders for hands-free carrying. I keep them in the back of my car so I always have one handy. I wash them when they get dirty, either a couple of times a year or when something spills in them. I also love the Ecobags cotton produce, bulk, and bread bags. Now I never bring home a single plastic bag! 

Personal care:

Handkerchiefs are stronger and more absorbent than paper tissues, not to mention much more attractive! You can pick up vintage ones inexpensively at antique stores or Ebay or Etsy, or buy new ones in any color or pattern to fit your style. I prefer cotton, but some old linen handkerchiefs are wonderfully soft. 

Terry-cloth washcloths are wonderful for bathing, working up a good lather, mildly exfoliating, and lasting much longer than plastic poufs. If you'd like more exfoliating, look for a rougher hemp or sisal cloth or mitt, or a loofah or natural body brush.



Cotton flannel wipes, identical to the flannel cleaning cloths, are wonderfully soft for washing faces, removing make-up, cleaning cuts and scrapes, and applying treatments such as toners or antiseptics instead of cotton balls or disposable pads.

The same flannel wipes are especially nice for wiping bottoms instead of toilet paper. Wet the cloth under the faucet and wipe. I used them on my babies, and then one day ran out of toilet paper and used one on myself. It was great! Much softer and more effective than paper, my bottom and hands were so much cleaner, and my bottom much drier and more comfortable. And although I use these same cotton flannel wipes for cleaning, personal use, and toilet wipes, I keep the three piles separate in washing and use.

Instead of tampons and pads, use cloth pads and silicone or rubber cups. Cloth pads are softer and more comfortable than disposables, much more absorbent, smell much less, and don't put synthetic petrochemicals and leaching plastics next to your reproductive organs. Check Etsy or Amazon for a wide selection. A small wetbag can collect used pads when out of the house, if necessary.

Cloth diapers can be used for years, are much softer on babies' bottoms, and again don't put synthetic petrochemicals and leaching plastics next to your baby's developing reproductive organs. Besides, there is nothing more adorable than a fat padded bottom crawling across the floor! I prefer cotton, hemp, and wool to plastic (polyester) fleece, but any reusable diaper gives vastly more use for the resources it uses in production and disposal than disposables. Abby's Lane has a great selection to get you started.

Maintenance

Cleaning and reusing your cloth is very easy. I do one or two "utility" washes a week, along with my regular laundry.

All kitchen towels, napkins, placemats, tablecloths, cleaning rags, dishcloths, and mop heads go into in a household laundry basket in the kitchen until wash day. I wash these on hot with soap and oxygen bleach and line-dry outside when possible. If I don't have a full load, I throw them in with my white clothes or sheets wash and everything comes out great.

Bath washcloths get washed with bath towels once a week or when dirty. Handkerchiefs get washed with white clothes once a week or when dirty.

I collect the more intimate personal cloth, including toilet wipes, menstrual pads, and diapers when my babies were using them, in a tight-sealing trash can or wetbag. For sanitary reasons, these get their own wash load, no matter how small. I set the washer to the lowest water level, prewash on cold to rinse, then wash on hot with soap and oxygen bleach, and line-dry outside when possible. When I was washing diapers, I washed every three days. With no diapers, I wash once a week.

The Washing Myth

Now, I often read, even in "green" publications, that using cloth is not really better for the environment because so much water and energy are wasted in washing it. I have researched this extensively and found that every "study" reaching this conclusion was either sponsored by a disposable product manufacturer, or made worst-case assumptions about washing routines that in no way reflect my or any normal practices. I also closely compared my water and electric bills from before and after I switched to all-cloth for household items, and there was no difference. Try it and see.

The washing myth helps us avoid feeling guilty about our laziness in avoiding an extra wash load or two a week. Disposable product advertising tells us every day that time spent cleaning is wasted and beneath us, and we're so hooked that we can't stop thinking of housework as something to be avoided at all costs. Really, housework is the maintenance of our existence as physical beings. Doing it mindfully as caring for ourselves and our environment can be a spiritual practice, as Zen masters and medieval monks knew.

It is my belief that even environmentalists cling desperately to this washing myth in the case of diapers, toilet wipes, and menstrual pads primarily because of a deep-seated Western squeamishness about our bodies. This is part of a pervasive Western cultural denial of our animal nature as living organisms that take in and emit matter, a small part of the organic whole of life and nature on earth. By classifying some of the normal functions of our bodies as "yucky" we can avoid our animality and interconnectedness, and set ourselves apart from and above nature.

You may also hear that cloth diapers, toilet wipes, and menstrual pads, and even handkerchiefs and washcloths, are unsanitary. Personally, I have been washing most of these items for my family for at least five years and have never had an incidence of related illness occur. Prior to the 1920s, there were no disposable toilet paper or menstrual pads or cotton balls, and no disposable diapers until the 1950s, and the vast majority of humans avoided dying of cholera or dysentery. Cloth toilet wipes were once considered a luxury for the wealthy, and are mentioned in King Henry VIII of England's palace account books. He did not die of a communicable disease. Basic handwashing after using the bathroom (which I hope you are already doing anyway) and segregating and disinfecting personal cloth in hot water and sunlight will prevent the spread of germs.

The final straw against the washing myth is that you never hear it about other disposable products. "Reuse" is one of the triumvirate of environmentalist principles: reduce, reuse, recycle. Have you ever heard anyone say that paper plates and plastic forks are more environmentally sustainable than ceramic and metal, since washing plates and flatware in the dishwasher uses so much water and energy? Or that we should all wear disposable paper clothes to save washing fabric garments? Or that plastic shopping bags and single-use plastic water bottles are better than reusable versions? No, because the argument is clearly ridiculous!

Top Ten Things You Can Do Today to Reduce Your Textile-related Environmental Impact

1) Wear an apron. When cooking, cleaning, or doing anything messy, wear an apron to protect your clothes from getting dirty so you don't have to wash them as often. Washing and drying use lots of energy and resources, as well as slowly destroy your clothes. The less you wash them, the longer they will last, as well as drastically reducing your environmental impact through energy and water use. Also wear underwear, an undershirt, and/or a slip under your clothes to protect them from the other side too.

2) Wear clothes until they are really dirty. Clothes and household textiles such as napkins can be used several times before washing. If clothes are not stained, hang them on a hook, hanger, valet stand, or chair overnight to air out, and generally they can be worn again before washing, perhaps several times. On the other hand, always wash an item before storing it for a period of time, such as its off-season, since even invisible dirt and oils will potentially discolor the fabric over time or attract pests such as moths.

3) Green your wash. Switch to phosphate-free, all-natural, biodegradable laundry soap and additive-free oxygen-based bleach. A clean-rinsing soap will avoid build-up, and eliminate the need for dryer sheets, fabric softener, and other additives. Adjust water level to the size of each load, and use the coolest water needed for your items.

4) Dry laundry on a line. Sunshine will bleach whites, remove stains, disinfect fabrics, and give the freshest ozone smell! Air drying inside will humidify your house. Air drying anywhere will eliminate wrinkles, prolong the life of your clothes, and cut energy consumption by up to 75%. Tumble air-dried laundry in your dryer on no heat for 5 minutes to soften clothes if needed, or just shake out. If you must machine-dry on occasion, use low heat and wool dryer balls to cut drying time, static, and wrinkles. 

5) Develop a personal style. Determine the types of clothing you need for the activities you do, and the shapes, colors, and styles that look best on you. Likewise, determine a style for your home furnishings appropriate to your daily activities, the architecture of your house, and your taste. Then only buy garments and textiles that meet your criteria. You will have fewer clothes, but you will love everything in your closet and always feel confident in your clothes. Unsubscribe from all clothing store email lists so you are not tempted to impulse buy things you don't need or that don't look best on you just because "It's such a bargain!"

6) Buy quality. Buy the best quality clothing and furnishings you can afford, so they will last a long time. Buy organic natural fibers whenever possible; the cost will help you think twice about whether the item is truly necessary! Linen, hemp, wool and silk have the least environmental impact in production, then cotton. Look for quality construction, including strong seams and buttons, linings, and substantial fabrics.

7) Buy used. Check consignment shops, thrift stores, ebay and other sources for second-hand and vintage clothing and household textiles before buying new. Check Etsy for interesting recycled and upcycled items.

8) Learn simple sewing. Sewing on a button, catching up a hem, and repairing seams allows you to keep wearing the clothes you love instead of throwing a garment away and buying a new one. You can make your clothes last longer by mending any small issues right away. Many fabric stores offer beginner sewing and mending classes to get you started. You can even learn to do basic alterations such as taking in seams to adjust the fit of clothes. 

9) Go cloth instead of disposable. As you run out of disposable paper and plastic products, switch to long-wearing, biodegradable, natual-fiber cloth versions: napkins, placemats, cleaning and wiping rags, kitchen towels, handkerchiefs, washcloths, even potty wipes and menstrual pads. You can buy these items or cut cleaning rags from old clothes and furnishing textiles that are no longer useable. T-shirts, sweatshirts, towels, and sheets make excellent cleaning rags.

10) Donate, don't trash. When disposing of clothing and textiles, give everything to a charity such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Items in good condition will be sold or used in their charity shops or programs, and stained, torn, or unusable items will be sold to recyclers and kept out of landfills.

What is a textile?

A textile is any object made of fibrous material by people. "By people" excludes naturally occurring textile-like objects, such as spider webs, birds' nests, beaver dams, etc, so we're only talking about human artifacts here. "Of fibrous material" means that the object contains fibers.

So what is a fiber? A fiber is any object with a length at least 1000 times its diameter. Basically, a fiber is a very long, very skinny object. There are three main types of fibers: natural, regenerated, and synthetic. Natural and synthetic fibers are fairly self-explanatory: natural fibers are those the occur in nature as long, skinny objects, and require human intervention only to free them from the rest of the plant or animal in which they grow. Wool, silk, cotton, and linen are natural fibers. Synthetic fibers are entirely synthesized by humans, built molecule by molecule and polymer by polymer out of petroleum-derived molecular soup. These fibers do not exist in nature as long, skinny objects, nor do the materials of which they are made exist in nature. Synthetic fibers include nylon, polyester, acrylic, and spandex. Regenerated fibers are a kind of hybrid of natural and synthetic fibers: they are made of naturally-occuring polymer material, but are reduced to molecular soup before being formed into long, skinny fibers. The naturally-occuring polymer can be cellulose, as in rayon; casein, from milk; or other material.

The vision

What would a sustainable textile industry look like? How would we shop? The sustainable textile rules are similar to sustainable food rules and I envision a similar system for textiles as is emerging for food.

Local farmers in your area grow fibers organically, without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. At your local farmer's market, you browse the soft, fluffy piles of wool and cotton, or smooth, lustrous linen or silk, or alpaca or angora rabbit or cashmere or whatever other fibers grow in your area. You select the best fiber for your current needs and take it home or to your local processor to spin or felt, weave or knit, sew or shape. The farmers might also sell ready-spun and -dyed yarn as well as finished fabric or garments. Many people also grow fibers in their gardens, along with their vegetables, or keep a few sheep or rabbits or alpaca in their yards along with the chickens.

Later, you stop in at your local fabric shop and check out the latest wool suitings, cotton shirtings, bedsheet percales, and gorgeous pattern-woven silk dress fabrics. All these textiles are made by regional textile mills or local craftspeople. They buy fiber from the same local sustainable farms and create all kinds of cloth. From fiber to fabric, all steps take place in one production center or complex, including cleaning the fibers, spinning, weaving or knitting, dyeing or printing, and finishing. The workers live in your town or area and make a living wage. The dyeing and finishing are done without any toxic and polluting chemicals. You take your fabric home or to a local seamstress to sew into simple clothes, bedsheets, curtains, or whatever else you need.

For more complicated or nicer garments, you take your fabric to your local tailor or dressmaker's shop to have your clothes made. You collaborate with the dressmaker on your garment design and in choosing your trimming and notions. She contributes expertise in fabric drapery and cut, suggestions on styles she has seen work before, and information on current fashion trends or historic styles as appropriate. You contribute your preferences on the style, cut, colors and fabrics that work for you. You might bring in pictures of clothes you've seen to be copied, with whatever adjustments you want, or your favorite old dress to be recreated in fresh fabric. All of your clothes fit you perfectly, are exactly the right length, height, and width in every place. The colors are always flattering to your complexion, the cuts always flattering to your figure, the style always exactly what you feel most comfortable and lovely wearing. What a dream!

Your local furnishing shop offers all the custom upholstery, drapery, and household linens that are too complicated for you to make at home. You buy your fabric at the fabric store or browse the furnisher's selection, and she applies it to your furniture, makes your curtains or rugs or bedskirts or quilts, as well as your sheets and towels and kitchen towels if you prefer not to hem these at home. Your home is filled with colors and fabrics you love, and you can always get new pieces to fill out your collection. Your pattern is never discontinued.

Also, the milliners! Bring back the hat.

All of these beautiful, natural fibers, fabrics, clothes and soft furnishings are more expensive than the old industrial, synthetic, polluting, sweatshop-produced textiles, because they are produced sustainably by people living near us. Therefore most of us cannot afford the large amounts of clothing and household textiles people were accustomed to in the dirty times. However, the quality is so much better, and everything is custom-made exactly as we prefer, so the fewer items we do have are so much more satisfying than the piles of never-quite-exactly-right things we used to make do with. Plus, we have gained extra space in our homes by turning those gargantuan walk-in closets in late-twentieth-century houses into nurseries, offices, storage rooms, craft rooms, and other uses.

You carefully care for, store, and mend your expensive clothes and linens to make them last as long as possible. You launder your clothes and linens at home in your machine or by hand, and dry on the line in the sunshine or in the machine. You resew buttons and hems, mend holes, let out or take in seams based on your changing shape, remove stains, and store your freshly cleaned clothes in cedar and lavender to prevent pests. For specialty items or the time-pressed, professional cleaners offer hand washing, sustainable dry-cleaning, and mending. When the clothes and furnishings are beyond repair, you or the dressmaker or furnisher salvage the remaining usable fabric for a child's garment, a smaller chair or window curtain, or a bag or other smaller item. As the smaller items wear out, eventually the fabric becomes cleaning rags.

Or, instead of wearing your clothes and furnishings out or reusing the fabric, you sell them at the consignment shop, where you can also browse for pre-worn clothes and furnishings you might like.

Finally when only useless scraps are left, you sell them to the regional textile mills to be recycled into shoddy fabric, insulation, paper, or some other product. Or, you simply throw the scraps on the compost heap to biodegrade along with the rest of the organic material that feeds your garden.

The rules

for a truly sustainable textile industry.

1) Buy organically and sustainably produced natural fibers. No matter how recyclable a synthetic fiber is, or how fast-growing the raw material for a regenerated fiber, these will still always require petroleum extraction, solvents, factories, and industrial waste to manufacture. Avoid chemical finishes, which also pollute the environment and you.

2) Buy textile items produced as close to home as possible. Most natural fibers have a growing range and are produced with the least negative environmental impact in those areas for which the plant or animal is best adapted. So if you live in a cotton-growing area, it makes sense to wear cotton. If you don't, textiles are a less-heinous import than some other types of consumer goods. Textiles are one of the oldest trade items (since at least 3000 BC), because they are generally lightweight, not breakable or perishable, easy to pack, and highly valuable. So buy your cotton from an area which is suited to that plant. But bear in mind that every mile your item travels involves fossil fuels. Use a local tailor or dressmaker. Your clothes purchases will support the local economy, and will also fit you perfectly and be the exact styles, fabrics, and colors you prefer. You can also much more easily evaluate the working conditions in a local shop than in a factory half a world away.

3) Learn to make textiles. You can sew, knit, weave, crochet, embroider, spin, dye, and/or grow and process fibers. The more steps in the production of a textile item you can perform yourself, the more you can control the materials, style, fit, labor conditions, and waste.

4) Develop a personal style based on flattering styles for your body shape, flattering colors for your skin tone and hair color, and appropriate fabrics, patterns, and garments for your lifestyle. Then buy the best quality clothes you can afford. They will last for years if properly laundered, stored, and mended. It costs the same amount to wear a $300 skirt once a week for 6 years during its season (~$1/wear) as to wear a $30 skirt once a week that falls apart or pills up or looks awful after a single season (~$1/wear). Plus you will always look great and feel confident because you are wearing flattering clothes, and have a sense of style.

5) Develop a personal style for your home in the same way, based on coordinating styles for the architecture of your house and appropriate items for your lifestyle. Then again, buy the best quality home furnishings you can afford and maintain them properly for longest use.

6) Learn to launder textiles correctly. You need soap, agitation, and plenty of water, as well as heat to disinfect items that have direct bodily contact. Use a washing machine in which you can control the amount of water, as well as the temperature of the water for each part of the cycle. To whiten and remove stains, use an oxidizing bleach or sunlight. Hang clothes to dry or tumble dry on low heat until just dry- no longer. Iron with steam. Launder clothes only when truly soiled, or before storage for any length of time. Washing destroys fibers and dyes, so the less you wash an item the longer it will last.

7) Learn to maintain textiles. Sew on missing buttons, catch up hems, mend tears or holes, add embellishments, alter garments to accommodate changing body shape or styles, and so on. Launder garments and furnishings before storage, use lavender or cedar to deter bugs, use proper padding and ventilation and darkness to avoid fiber and dye degradation. This extends the useful life of your items.

8) Use textiles until they are literally rags. After a garment is no longer useful, donate it to someone less fortunate, or use the fabric that is still good to make a smaller garment for a child or a doll. Or cut up the garment and use the pieces in a quilt or as patches. Or use the pieces as rags to wash dishes, the house, the car, wipe up spills, wipe your bottom, and so on. When the pieces of cloth are no longer usable even as cleaning rags, compost them or donate them to be recycled into shoddy cloth.

9) Recognize that the entire giant multi-billion-dollar global textile and fashion industry is completely dependent on YOU, the consumer, to buy its products. If the products don't sell, the companies will stop making them. YOU have the power to change the system.