a convenient tree hugger: napkins (but not paper towels)

I made the switch to cloth napkins several years ago, and it was pretty darn easy. I bought several yards of plain gray linen for pennies a yard when Hancock Fabric went out of business (a sad day in my house), I cut it into squares, and I serged the edges. It probably took me an hour to make a whole slew of them. They're nothing fancy, but we use them to wipe our dirty mouths, so they don't need to be.

To be honest with you, we do still have paper napkins, too. Our stash of cloth gets us a few days, but if you think that I always keep up on laundry, well, think again! Sometimes we do resort to paper for a day or two. This is a problem that could easily be solved one of two ways: doing laundry more frequently (not likely) or making more napkins. I'm going to opt for the latter.

And while I'm at it, I might as well make an extra set to give away to one of my lovely readers! Enter below for your chance to win 20 premium ultra deluxe* handmade cloth napkins!

*They're not that fancy. They're fabric with serged edges. But you don't have to throw them away after you use them! I will let you have input in the fabric selection, though. I'd hate to make you a set of red and white checkered napkins and find out that your dining room is blue and green. Or something.

You might be thinking "Yay! Cloth napkins are great! Let's even take it a step farther and add some reusable paper towels to the mix!" I'll be honest, I once thought that myself. I even pinned a couple easy patterns so I could make my own, since I am my mother's daughter! Then I looked at the occasions when I actually use paper towels. They are few and far between. Here are pretty much the only times I use paper towels:

• When cleaning up bodily fluids.
• When wiping out something particularly oily or greasy.
• Other rare occasions when I just want to be done with the thought of the mess forever and not have to deal with it in my laundry.

In these instances, I just want to throw the towel away. I don't want dog-pee soaked rags in with my clothes. Maybe if I went back to cloth diapering, I would consider it, but for now, it goes into the trash. I made the mistake a few times of using a hand towel or other rag to clean up a greasy mess, and no matter how well I thought I rinsed it after, I still ended up with grease stains on the other items in that load of laundry. It's easy enough to get them out with dish soap, but why no avoid that step if I can?

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a convenient tree hugger

Lately I've been aware of just how much waste my family produces, particularly plastic. I know it can be recycled, and it's easy to subscribe to the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy, but I'm starting to learn that's not good enough. I've read a number of articles that have been pretty sobering. Do a quick search for "What happens to recycled plastic?" and look for some of the newer articles. There have been some developments in the last year that mean big changes, so anything older than late 2018 is likely no longer accurate. This article was particularly startling to me.

So, what can we do about it? I've started a new campaign in my home that I am calling the "convenient tree hugger" campaign. I'm looking for easy ways that I can use to reduce the amount of waste we discard every day. Some things are so easy I regret not doing them years ago, but better late than never, right? While much of my focus has been on reducing waste, particularly plastic, I decided to throw in a little animal love while I'm at it. If I'm already doing the research to find environmentally sustainable products, I might as well spend a few more minutes learning about a company's other ethical beliefs. Usually the companies that are into zero-waste packaging and sustainability are also big on being nice to the animals, so they're pretty up front and I don't have to dig very far!

So here are the criteria as I've been deciding which products to try and which ones make the final cut:

1. It must fit in my budget. And I work with a pretty tight budget. Dave Ramsey debt snowball type budget. As much as I would love to buy the vegan/cruelty free/stainless steel packaged/refillable mascara, $38 a tube just isn't going to happen right now.
2. It must work as well as the mainstream non-eco product. I used homemade and "green" laundry detergents for years, and eventually our whites were...not so white. I made the switch back to plain old Tide and I haven't regretted it. Though I will, in the near future, continue my search for a better option.
3. I am not opposed to making my own if possible, but it can't be overly time consuming. I have little ones, after all.
4. I'm not going to throw away a perfectly "good" product to make room for a new "better" one. I have a bottle of body wash that I received as a gift. To throw it away without using it would be wasteful and contradict what I am going for here.
5. For now, "better" is good enough. Toms of Maine makes some stuff that I really like, primarily their sensitive toothpaste. They are considered "cruelty free" (manufactured or developed by methods that do not involve experimentation on animals), but they are owned by Colgate-Palmolive, a company that is not. While I am searching for a toothpaste that is in no way associated with animal testing or packaged in a traditional "throw it away" tube, for now, Toms is good enough.

I'm really looking forward to sharing my finds with you all!

If you have a product (one that you make or one that you love) that you think fits the bill, I'd love to chat with you about it!

*Disclaimer: I know you can find absolutely any information you want on the internet, and that everything has to be taken with a grain or more of salt. But even if my latest reads are total BS and there is no plastic crisis in our world, the worst that will come of my efforts is less chance that there will be a crisis in the future. Worth it.