Change the World Wednesday -- Use Cloth Towels

This week’s Change the World Wednesday challenge at Reduce Footprints was to use fewer paper towels. As it turns out, Liz and I both try not to use paper towels at all. After all, we use cloth diapers and wipes, it's not too far a stretch. And—as you’ll see—we both went about trying to get our men on board in much the same way. Here’s how it went down:

Gaby: So I did the challenge this week. I thought it was going to be a big deal when I hid the paper towels on a high shelf in the laundry room, but I don’t think my husband noticed.
Liz: That’s so funny—I did the same thing! I considered playing a joke on my husband and removing them from the house altogether, but then I thought he might not think that was funny. So I hid them high up in the laundry room too!
Gaby: Did he go looking for them?
Liz: No, I told him about the challenge, and he took it pretty well… I was anticipating a protest, for some reason. But we normally use cloth wipes, napkins and rags to clean the house anyway so paper towels normally go a long way in our house.
Gaby: Me too. But he didn’t say a word. The week was noneventful, except for a few incidents.
Liz: Like what?
Gaby: Well, you don’t realize that you rely on paper towels for a few things. I used to rely on them for things like cat puke, but I’m ok with using cloth on that and just laundering it. But when an earwig was crawling across my rug, I ran for the cabinet, and then I remembered. No paper towels. And I was like, Crap. I didn’t have time to get them at the top of the laundry room. And I hate bugs. HATE.
Liz: What did you do?
Gaby: I acted courageously. I killed it with my bare hands and threw it in the trash.
Liz: Go you! I’m impressed. Yeah, I ran across an issue when it came time for draining bacon. But I used a rack and just let the grease drip off.
Gaby: You could always set aside a couple of cloths specifically for draining bacon. And just don’t put those in the dryer—fire hazard.
Liz: It’s going to be interesting to see how other people got creative with this challenge and what they used. I also hit a bit of a snag once we started our first ever tiling project. The glue that you use to set the tiles was everywhere. But I dragged out some old washcloths and used those instead, and they worked much better than paper towels. And I can actually reuse them!
Gaby: It’s funny how you don’t realize you can just wash something and use it again. I used to go through roll after roll of paper towels in college. It makes me sad just thinking about it. Okay, but I did totally cheat.
Liz: What happened?
Gaby: Well, we were sitting at dinner, and you know how they say not to sit your baby in any kind of seat on top of the kitchen table? Well, I now know it’s not because it’s a high surface. It’s because they can spill your beer.
Liz: Your beer?
Gaby: Yup. We have these tall, fluted beer glasses, and we were sitting at dinner, and in one fell swoop, Little M reached out and knocked one over. It broke, and glass went everywhere. I really didn’t want to deal with glass in the washer, so I had my husband go get—sigh—the paper towels. I used about half the roll, and then—boom: Little M knocked over the other beer glass! My other son was crying because I yelled so loudly. I used a lot of paper towels. But what are you supposed to do with glass?
Liz: Yeah, I don’t know. That’s a special circumstance.
Gaby: I still feel guilty, so I’ll have to hide what’s left of the roll for the next month to make up for it.

If you want to join in on the Change the World Wednesday challenge, click on the link below or on the banner in our sidebar. Also, feel free to leave comments on our shorter showers post if you tried that this week!

Change the World Wednesday: Take Shorter Showers

The ladies at Green Baby Diaper Service, as well as many of their customers, are into being “green”—taking actions to use sustainable resources, reduce their carbon footprint, and help the environment a little at a time. We’re optimistic—we think little changes made by individuals can change the world. Like using cloth diapers. Or washing your hair with baking soda.

So we’re joining in Change The World Wednesday (#CTWW) at Reduce Footprints, a blog that gives advice for interacting peacefully with the Earth. For more information, you can visit the website and learn about the idea behind #CTWW, but here’s the gist of it:

This week’s challenge was to take shorter showers. We’re trying to save water, so we’re limiting our showers to 5 minutes or less. There are other ways to “up the ante,” like turning off the water while you’re soaping up or sharing a shower with a buddy. (Don’t get any crazy ideas--these days, those buddies tend to be our kids. And yes, they usually pee in the shower, saving even more water. See? Saving the environment is innately programmed in us, it seems.)

Liz and I are getting in on the challenge. We have each tried it since last Wednesday. This is how it went down:

5 Reasons Why Using Cloth Diapers and a Diaper Service is Freeing

There is a cloth diaper carnival going on this week, hosted at Natural Parents Network. It’s basically a conglomeration of bloggers who just can’t get enough of cloth diapering. I’ll admit, it is pretty addictive. I didn’t start cloth diapering my first son until he was about 3 months old, and I hadn’t planned to cloth diaper my second son until he was out of the super-fresh newborn stage. I didn’t have small enough diapers, or so I thought.

#1: Disposables don’t contain the mess

It turns out that I got so fed up with him peeing out the top of the diaper (moms of boys, you know what I mean: they magically pee everywhere but in their diaper if you don’t point things the right way). So I pulled out my stash, and at about one week old, the cloth diapering began.

#2: Cloth diapers fit better

Maybe because my son wasn’t super small—he was born weighing 8 lbs, 10 oz—what I already had fit him. I bought a new stack of prefolds and used the Thirsties diaper covers I already had. Prefolds are so absorbent and covers have such snug elastic that I never dealt with a leak again.

But now, coordinating cloth diapering between two kids was getting complicated. My oldest does not use cloth at daycare, so I only cloth diaper him part time. So planning to have all of his diapers clean and available on the days he’s home is important. And I liked planning to wash his with the baby’s diapers to make a full load.

But my older son gets horrible diaper rash, so half the time I wasn’t using cloth anyway, because it seemed to exacerbate the rash. I tried a variety of detergents and even tried no detergent at all. A few months ago, I was ready to give up cloth for my older son altogether.

#3 It gives you time to do things other than wash diapers

And then I started using the diaper service. It has taken away an element of stress from my life. Is washing diapers all that stressful? No. But I would undoubtedly forget and have to scrounge while they were going through their 3 or 4 wash/rinse cycles. I couldn’t wash and dry diapers overnight because the cat sleeps in the laundry room, and having the machines on freaks her out. Not that I really care—she’s a very mean cat, so I have no sympathy—but she howls.

Then there were the two dryer cycles, or the one dryer cycle and then lay the diapers out in the sun. Which inevitably meant I would be collecting diapers from all over my yard by the end of the day. Then putting them all away: stuffing pockets, folding prefolds, and stacking the lumpy diapers up where they went. Which I usually didn’t do until a day later.

I was constantly washing diapers.

Using the diaper service has made me feel so free. Really. It’s a little thing off my plate, but it’s one less thing to hover in my brain. I pick up a neatly stacked pile of diapers, come home, and put them away. That’s it. No more laundry baskets sitting around or washer/dryer being occupied for days. At least not with diaper laundry.

#4 It saves money

Even though my water bill was up at least $20 from all my washing and I was spending $30 a pop on special detergent, my son was still getting major diaper rash. The diaper service was my last chance at cloth with him, and he hasn’t gotten diaper rash since I started. After spending last month boiling extra water to throw in the wash cycle, stripping my diapers, sunning my diapers, and running rinse cycle after rinse cycle because I was convinced I could still feel detergent residue, it is so nice to be able to put a diaper on my son and not have to worry that his skin will get red, raw, and blistering.

I don’t know if it’s because the laundry service uses industrial machines to get every last bit of detergent out of the diapers or if it’s because prefolds are so absorbent that the moisture isn’t sitting next to his skin as long, but the diaper rash is gone. Another worry that can stop squatting in my brain.

Also, because I was so worried about the diaper rash, I kept trying to buy new types of diapers to combat the problem. I was using prefolds and covers with my infant and pocket diapers and all-in-ones with my toddler. You can’t reuse a pocket or all-in-one when you change it, so that was making a lot of diaper laundry, and I would stress if I didn’t get the wash timed right and ran out of diapers for the next day.

Using the diaper service, I literally only use 2 covers for my toddler (who I only cloth diaper 3 days a week because of daycare) and about 4 for my infant. You don’t have to change a cover unless it got pooped on. I tend to just use one cover all day (or alternate with 2 if one gets too wet) and then throw it in the wash. Then I wash the covers with my regular laundry and hang them up to dry.

I’m still addicted and want to try different kinds of covers now, but I can restrain myself. I can also use wool soakers that I make myself, which saves a ton of money.

Yes, there’s the cost of the diaper service. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s super cheap. You don’t have to pay for water, special detergents, or extra diapers. And you have plenty of diapers, so you don’t have to scrounge and use disposables on the days you forget to do laundry. Not having to buy disposables saves a lot of money too.

#5 You don’t have to deal with the mess

Cloth diapering isn’t bad for a breastfed baby, but once they start eating solids and their poop resembles yours, it’s an entirely different matter. I didn’t want to invest in a diaper sprayer, so I had sacrificed a pancake-flipping spatula to the cause. That’s right, I would scrape my kid’s poop off the diapers with a spatula. Inevitably, it would get all over me.

When you use a diaper service, you don’t have to deal with the poop. Take the diaper off, throw it in the bag/bin, and wipe your kid’s butt. That’s it. Liz, I’m so sorry you and your mom have to deal with my kids’ poop, but it’s really nice to take a break from pancake-flipping poop. So thanks.