Revive the Rag Bag!

Somewhere on the web, a site asks, “Can you imagine life without paper towels?” Frankly, yes. Our ancestors managed, and we can, too. Here’s how.

Paper towels are cheap and convenient. But let’s face it: society got along without them for thousands of years. If all the paper towels in the world suddenly disappeared overnight, somehow we’d all muddle through.

Paper’s real cost

It’s not just the sheer number of trees wasted by disposable paper products — most are farmed, and can be regrown. But large scale pulpwood production is the reason you can drive for hours in parts of the southern United States and see nothing but pine trees. It’s a poor substitute for diverse native forests and their rich ecosystems. Then there’s the issue of the bleaches used to make paper look white, and the cellulose-rich waste which gets dumped into our watershed. Paper production is messy business.

Of course, you needn’t give up disposable paper products altogether. But cutting back is a good way to save money and reduce your environmental footprint.

Bring back the rag bag!

Your mother probably had a rag bag. So did her mom. Long before supermarkets stocked row upon row of paper towels, families recycled their worn clothing and towels into useful clean-up rags.
Maybe it’s time to bring back this tried-and-true method. It’s always best to give away useable clothing, but sometimes old duds just come to the end of the line. That’s when you get out your scissors and start cutting.

Cotton makes the best picker-upper, but even synthetics can be used for polishing. Cut your scrap fabric into 9 or 10-inch squares. Put them in bags wherever you’d use paper towels — particularly in the kitchen. A short rinse before dropping your soiled rags into the wash, and they’re ready for the next job.

A quickie rag dispenser

Looking for the convenience of paper towels? Here’s a quick project to make things easy. Using a craft knife, cut a hole about four inches wide and two inches tall near the bottom of a discarded 2 liter soda bottle. Keep the cut just above the rounded bottom section, which provides the bottle’s structural strength.

Now stuff the bottle with lightweight rags. They’ll be in reach and ready to go whenever there’s a mess.