Did you know that Americans use an estimated 13 billions pounds (6,500,000 tons) of paper towels per year?
Paper towels use up too many natural resources in their production
Paper towels pretty much solve any spillage, cleaning situation in a common household, even more if kids are in the picture. Did you wash your hands and need to dry them? Use a paper towel- or two. Did your kid spill juice on the floor? Use 5. Do you need to clean the countertops? Paper towels to the rescue. The possibilities are endless when it comes to using them around the house. However, many don’t know that it takes 17 trees and 20,000 gallons of water to make only 1 ton of paper towels. That is a lot of wasted trees and water to produce such a minimal amount, compared to the demand. Here are some facts:
- Every year 254 million tons of trash are produced from discarded rolls around the globe
- 51,000 trees per day are needed to replace the amount of rolls that are put in the trash every day
- $4.1 million landfill dumping fees could be saved if every household in the USA used 3 less rolls per year
What an insane and unnecessary environmental impact.
If you care about the environment, you can look at environmentally friendly alternatives. Such as cloth rags to clean up messes or dry your hands. Or there are some biodegradable dishcloths that are made of 70% cellulose and 30% cotton that can be reused time after time and washed up to 50 times before having to discard them.