At the start of each month, I'll be writing about a new series that I've started:
Frugal
Actions
Related
To
Sustainability
Or FARTS for short.
That's right people. These are the things that keep me up at night - how can I be a 12 year old boy and incorporate silly words in to blog posts. You.Are.Welcome!
So, the series will be a monthly tip on something that is super easy to incorporate in to your household that a) is extremely low cost and b) keeps your carbon footprint just a teeny tiny bit smaller. These might be things that (hint hint) you don't tell your family that you're doing if push back is a common occurrence in your household.
This month's FARTS tips is replace paper napkins with cloth ones. These can be purchased new, made (one of the simplest sewing projects there is), or picked up at estate/yard sales or Goodwill. They don't have to match each other, or be fancy - you're just using them to wipe your hands and face after all. Get enough for the whole family, and have a "system" to reuse ones that are only lightly soiled to cut down on laundry.
This is our cloth napkin holder.
We put ones that can be reused on the bottom "rack", and use those first. If you've ever been at my house for a meal, don't worry, guests get clean ones from the top of the basket!!
This is my kitchen rag bin that sits by our fireplace right outside our kitchen.
I bought this at a garage sale. If we have company coming over, I make sure it's empty. Then it just looks like an empty bucket on the fireplace!
I throw a rag and the cloth napkins in there when I'm done with it, and add them to my next load of laundry. Our laundry room is downstairs, so this bucket keeps me from having to run up and down the stairs just to put a dirty rag somewhere. Unless the rags are gross (touched raw meat, etc.) I don't feel the need to do a separate load of them. Once they have been washed a few times, I don't notice any color bleeding on to lighter clothes/items.
Replacing paper napkins with cloth ones keeps additional waste out of the landfills, and saves you money because you're not buying replacement paper. And depending on what napkins you find, having the cloth ones can really dress up your meal! Just a tip if you have smaller kids - dark napkins are the way to go.
Toot in next month for the second installment of FARTS.
