Baby step: cutting down on disposable paper tissues

Given that it just snowed a few days ago, it's probably premature to say winter and cold and flu season are behind us. But, we can hope, anyway. Regardless, I'm really pleased to say this year we've seen a drastic reduction in the amount of disposable paper tissues coming in and out of our house. Not that we didn't have colds and flu. Plenty of those nasty viruses found their way into our noses, etc. But the tips we got from you, our readers, led to some changes...

I believe it was Carol who noted in my post about using handerkerchiefs that Kirkland baby wipes (which are made of cloth, not paper) can go through the washer and dryer. So we've experimented with that, and it's been very successful. I almost never use a paper tissue to blow my nose anymore, since I can usually tap into my store of washed-and-dried Kirkland hankies now. The kids have actually paid attention to my talks about using less paper. So in years past, we would have weathered winter with a giant Costco case of 8-10 tissue boxes. This year I think I only bought a few Seventh Generation boxes (not a case, just the regular boxes). They are using less, or they are wiping their noses on their sleeves more. Either way, we're using less disposable paper, so that's a good thing, right?

Thanks to Julie F.'s great recommendation, we are using a bandanna as our "drying towel on the go" instead of using disposable paper towels in public restrooms. And since we almost exclusively use cloth napkins in the kitchen, we've gotten used to wiping our noses and mouths on cloth.

So yes, it's a baby step. But it feels good to celebrate small sucesses. And I remember thinking how weird it would be to wipe my nose with cloth when I first started thinking about it. Now that we've switched, the idea of using paper sounds equally weird!!