We’re not necessarily the “greenest” family on the block – three young kids and two busy careers means we often have to choose convenience over conservation. However, we try our best where we can. One simple “fix” for us has been to vastly eliminate the number of paper towels we go through.

For cleaning the house we use old wash cloths or towels, something I assume many people also do. For wiping all of the messy faces and sticky fingers at meals we have a stash of reusable paper towels. I purchased my supply from the Etsy shop generationME.

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These “paper towels” are super soft cotton, and perfect for sensitive baby cheeks. And because they look different from any other washcloth or towel in our house they do not get misplaced when the laundry gets folded (often the twins’ nanny will fold the laundry and this ensures kitchen washcloths won’t get mixed up with bath washcloths).

I love that we’re not going through endless amounts of paper towels during meals! It really is such a waste, and because we do so much laundry we are able to regularly wash these cloths. However, I did recently decide that the set of 12 we started with just isn’t enough for three children so I purchased an additional set of 12.

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Now, you may be asking yourself, “This is great, but do you just have dirty cloths piling up in your kitchen?” Nope. There’s also a solution for that. We have a “wet bag” of sorts that hangs from our freezer drawer where we place the dirty cloths and bibs.

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Unfortunately the Etsy shop I purchased this bag from, Paisley Home Studio, seems to have closed. If you search Etsy for “kitchen wet bag” you will find plenty of options for waterproof bags to hang in your kitchen. Since we do laundry every 2-3 days, we simply throw the contents from the bag into the laundry. About once a week we will also wash the bag.

The cloths and the wet bag are both accessible to Miss H so she can grab a cloth to wipe her sticky fingers and she knows to throw it in the bag when she’s done.

This is such a simple and inexpensive change, but a perfect opportunity to keep the paper towels on the roll and out of the garbage!

What changes have you made around your home to help you be a little bit “greener”?