Originally published at: Shop paper towels are superior to kitchen paper towels | Boing Boing
…
3 Likes
Utterly agree, but a good middle-cost option is the classic cloth-like Viva towels. Those are my go-to cat barf towels.
5 Likes
Beat me to it. Love his channel.
Admittedly, I use both types- the costco-branded ones for kitchen and general use (along with Z-fold towels from Georgia Pacific which were purchased during pandemic) and the blue shop towels. I usually grab whatever’s closest for spill and barf cleanups.
2 Likes
I use a pair of wide plastic putty knives to scrape the barf off of the floor or carpet. Even on the carpet this helps remove most of the solids and liquids. Then for carpets I blot the stain with an ordinary paper towel, then scrub with stain remover and a brush.
I try to avoid using shop towels, or their less durable domestic equivalent, Viva, because they are made of plastic and are even less environmentally friendly than regular paper towels if used as disposables.
7 Likes
For regular household cleanup, I have a couple dozen extra cheap cotton washcloths, which get washed with the rest of the towels in loads I would be running anyway. We still use shop and plain paper towels for stuff too gross or toxic for washcloths.
3 Likes
I knew before clicking that this would be Project Farm.
1 Like
I thought shop paper towels were brown like cardboard. When did that change?
In the Army back in the 80s we had these awesome blue shop towels called Brag Boxes. Had the in the motor pool and our armory.
1 Like
These pretty much don’t degrade and are horrible on the environment… I bet.
I got disgusted with how many paper towels we were going through, so I got a couple 52-count packs of cotton rags from Costco for cleaning cat messes. They’ve proven useful for all sorts of nasty jobs around the house, like cleaning out drains. Soiled ones go in a basket in the garage. When the basket’s full, they go into the wash on hot/hot where they get bleached within an inch of their lives.
That said, those blue shop towels are useful raw material for some craft projects.
They make great mask material when you need something quick and disposable. You can easily make one with a sewing machine and a few pleats.
Whenever I need to get a haircut during the pandemic times, I can bang one out on the sewing machine in a couple minutes and use fashion tape to stick it to my face so I don’t have to worry about ties getting in the way. Then I just toss it in the garbage when I’m done and use my regular mask.
There’s a brand of ‘professional’ wipe towels that my first employer began stocking for the touch-labor people, to replace the more traditional paper towels they had been using. (I wish I could remember the brand-type). The guys at first complained about it. Change, you know. Then they learned how effective it was at cleaning. It was unusually slow to absorb cleaning solvents as surfaces were being wiped; that gave the solvents much more time to stay on the surfaces to do their job. That plus the (not much) additional wiping action made efficient use of the solvents which stuck around longer. Good stuff.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
