What is more environment friendly, paper towels or normal ones?

Question

Whilst at the spa today, I was wondering if it was more environment friendly to use paper towels or normal, cotton ones.
Don't you have to take into account how much water is used to wash the normal ones and how dangerous the detergent is, as well as how much water is used and if there is waste by producing the paper towels?
Also, isn't more wood used to make paper towels, and don't you use less normal towels in comparison to paper ones for the same drying effect?

Taking all this into account, which ones should I use?

Answer 1

Cloth Towels particularly if you use a wood burning stove to heat the water, use ecoballs instead of washing powder and wash at a low temperature. Then line dry. You could hand wash using 'grey' water but for me that it taking it a step too far.Lol.

Answer 2

One thing that no one seems to take into account is that water is used to make paper too! Paper manufacturing also uses huge amounts of energy and bleach and other chemicals. The wood fibers (or recycled paper fibers) are actually pressure cooked in water and chemicals early in the manufacturing process. The waste water is then cleaned before releasing it back into nature, but so is your wash water.

So, washing towels will always be better for the earth than using paper towels. If you use an environmentally friendly detergent the benefit is even greater. Environmentally friendly detergents can be found in most large grocery stores (try the organic section) for about the same price or even less per load than regular detergents. If your grocery store does not carry them, almost all health food stores do.

Using natural hemp or bamboo or organic cotton towels will also eliminate pesticides and bleach used in manufacturing the towels.

Answer 3

In general, regular towels are more eco-friendly. They're reusable and if you wash them in bulk or by hand and air-dry them, it uses very little water and no electricity to dry. The paper towels not only use a lot of wood to make but when you're done with them, there's the waste.
If you do use paper towels, you can get the ones made from recycled materials, more eco-friendly than regular ones.

Answer 4

Unless you know the backstory on how and where an item is produced, you'll only be guessing on which product is more appropriate. Both probably use bleach in production. So it depends on how the laundry is done at the spa. Since it's a public facility, they may be required to use strong cleaners to minimize health impacts.

Sounds like a toss up. I'd go for the cotton towels since they don't end up in the trash.

Answer 5

Paper towels are provided for public bathrooms because it limits the spread of germs. It is more environmentally friendly to use cotton towels and wash them with an environmentally friendly detergent.

Answer 6

paper towels do use up a lot of trees and you can purchase environment safe detergent. Compare using a real towel more than once, to using paper towels once!

Answer 7

normal ones of course...they are washed and used over for many years....paper towels on the other hand, one use and tossed out. Do you realize how many one can go through in a day/week/month?

Answer 8

Starch based "plastics" that biodegrade into soil food vs a jillion petrochemical plastics ( luggage, blender bodies, television chassis, vehicle aspects, coffee makers and so on, and so on) that the two won't be able to or are no longer being recycled and, at no time ever return to the organic cycle. Yours, Number6 (who isn't a great fan of petrochemical goo)

Answer 9

It depends , do u have a water shortage??? It will depend on your environment.