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Bill Lauto is an Environmental Scientist and Energy Consultant who has been teaching how we can save our money, energy, environment, and health, since 1982. Mr. Lauto operates GoingTrueGreen.com and his work has been published in magazines such as: Consumer Report, Kiplinger's Financial and Business Ethics. |
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When I was young I heard that request many times, after all, I was in a rush to get back “outside” and play. If I was playing inside, that meant rain was falling or night had arrived and I was busy inventing a board game or making a motor driven jeep from my Erector Set for G. I. Joe. But I digress…
As an individual and as a family what Napkin is more beneficial to use, Paper or Cloth?
To present all the different analysis done over the years that worked to determine what is best to use when eating, a Paper Napkin or Cloth Napkin, will be mostly dull reading. So many considerations, such as materials used in production, consumption of natural resources, added costs with color prints on paper napkins, the cleaning impact for reuse (wash and dry), or discarding in the trash.
The number of paper napkins used in America per year is mind spinning and reusing cloth napkins consumes everything from water to energy. However, if used with a few guide lines, cloth napkins are the most sustainable by saving us the most Money, Energy, Health, and our Environment.
So here are the guidelines I recommend so your change over to cloth napkins will save all around:
• Buy in bulk and buy around twelve cloth napkins for each member of the family. This will provide enough cloth napkins when company comes over to eat and will avoid running out of cloth napkins in case nobody was able to do the wash on time.
• Buy plain White cloth napkins (Not whiten by a bleach process)
• Buy Linen napkins, not cotton
• Always wash with other clothes
• Wash in COLD water
• Use a more environmental friendly detergent
• Use a clothes line to dry and visit my
EnergyHotwire.com Appliances page to learn more on How to SAVE the most with Clothes Dryers
• When the Linen napkins are worn out, wash and then Compost them!
So for all my young followers reading this, when you are done eating, please do the following:
Wipe your mouth, ask for permission to leave the table, place your dish in the sink, and place your cloth napkin in the dirty clothes bin. Then have fun playing Outside!
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