I have realised over the years that the bins in my house tend to get filled with a lot of paper based products like kitchen towels, paper napkins, face tissues and such. Most of it is the result of wiping surfaces, sanitising hands and cleaning other small objects from time to time like phone screens.
I do not have to tell you about the myriad of ways that we tend to use kitchen towels and other paper tissue around the house. They are convenient and hygienic. But what you might be surprised to hear is that they can also be environmental friendly option for cleaning as opposed to using cloth and microfibre.
The main issue with using re-usable cleaning medium like cloth and microfibre is keeping them clean for every instance of use, especially in environments like the kitchen. For this they need to be washed after every use, usually with soap, which means a substantial amount of water. So the carbon footprint isn’t as small as one would like to believe unless you are using recycled water as well.
That is something I do as well. I have a reverse osmosis water purifier at home. And I collect all the water it discards and use it for various other purposes. But that is another post.
Paper towels and kitchen towels are convenient and hygienic which is why most of you want to use them. But if you have felt the whole paper and trees connection guilt, as I do, there is some useful information for you.
Here is are some ways I use to minimise my carbon foot print from using paper towels and how I recycle them.
Recycling Paper Kitchen Towels and Face Tissues
1 – Use Recycled Kitchen Towels.
There are a few companies out there who make kitchen towels from recycled materials. For example, I use a particular brand that is made completely from the waste and by-product fiber from agricultural produce such as sugarcane and bamboo.  no trees are being cut to make this particular paper kitchen towels.
A strong reason for recommending using such products is the fact that all kinds of businesses work on profit, even the ones who are trying to make zero waste and carbon neutral products. These companies who are trying to make environment friendly products can only survive if they turn a profit. And if you as a consumer do not endorse them, then this good effort, which this planet very much needs, will probably flounder.
Therefore, it is also important to endorse such companies, to ensure that more businesses take up such models. 
2 – Discard all paper based tissues and napkins in a separate bin – Bury or Fire?
The first thing that one needs to do is to collect all the paper based cleaning mediums such as kitchen towels, and his tissues separately in a separate bin. Once this is done, there are different ways in which you can recycle them further. Collecting them separately will enable you to recycle them easily and hygienically.
One common method is to put them in the soil somewhere in the garden or in a pot. They decompose fairly quickly in the presence of soil and water.
The second way is to use them as fire starters in a fireplace or a barbecue. If you have bonfires, then you can toss them in there as well.
You may not be aware of this, but the carbon that is created as smoke while burning paper and wood is beneficial to plant life around. For example, did you know that the forest fires in one part of the world manage to nourish the trees in a forest in a separate continent? I recently came across this fact myself.
Carbon in the air is considered pollution for humans, and it is. Whereas for the trees and plant life around, it could be nutrition.
Recycling paper towels and tissues is tricky because it not something that you can collect to send to a recycling unit, as you could with lets say with printer paper, newspaper, books, cardboard etc. But the good part is that most of them decompose fairly quickly in soil and make it richer in nutrients. In fact some kitchen towels are made specifically to decompose easily, as will likely be mentioned in the product packaging.
Recycling TetraPacks
There are two things that I recycle / use tetra packs for. Tetrapacks come in usually 2 to 3 sizes ranging from about 250 ml to a litre. If you are into gardening, then they can be used as seed starters. However, after having used them as that they still need to be thrown out and getting them muddy and damp makes it that much harder to do so.
The easiest way to recycle tetra-packs is to collect them for a recycle centre. But collecting tetra packs for recycling is cumbersome if you do not follow a method. They need to be washed from the inside, flattened to save space when storing.
Washing the tetra packs for recycling.
Many people don’t realise this but almost all containers and packaging that are meant for recycling need to be washed by the consumer. This includes plastic bottles, plastic containers, tetra packs, blast containers, et cetera. Some containers will mention this fact on them, as a part of their printed recycling information.
The reason for washing the containers is clear. In case of containers that contained perishable goods, if not cleaned will lead to festering of the remnant material, and growth of bacteria and fungi, as is the case in case of food products like milk and juices.
Since the containers are likely to get recycled weeks after they are discarded, this situation is not conducive.
Even in the case of non-perishable materials such as cosmetics the containers nevertheless will have to be cleaned before they can be recycled. The reason why the consumer is requested to clean is also that it reduces the load on the recycling plant to a great deal.
In order to wash out a tera pack effectively you first need to cut it open on one of its edges. If you observe the carton, you will notice that it is folded down on all ends. It is glued down. If you open this fold, you will be able to find one of the corners which you can cut diagonally to make a hole with a pair of scissors. Now you can easily rinse it out through this hole under a tap.
The reason why you need to do this step is that tetra packs do not typically empty completely if you pour it out from the designated cap opening. There is always some remnant fluid remaining inside. In fact, opening out one of its corners and cutting it is also an effective way of utilising the entire contents of the tetra pack. I do this with all my juice and milk tetra pack cartons.
Flattening the tetra pack cartoon for collection
Flapping tetra pack curtains is important if you’re going to collect a few of them before sending them off recycling otherwise they are going to occupy a lot of space even when they are empty.
You can flatten by following the procedure I have mentioned above of pulling out its edges from all the four corners and cutting, off one corner after which you will be able to press it and flatten it completely.
You can press them together and tie them all with a string. You can keep collecting in this manner and they will be easy to dispose of when you have enough to give for recycling.
I discovered this to be a very helpful tip when it came to recycling tetra pack cartons because t enabled me to collect dozens of tetra pack cartons in one go with using very little space.
In another post in the recycling series, I am contemplating writing about recycling water from RO water purifiers and air conditioners in the house. I shall add the link to that here when it is done.
Thank you for reading and please feel free to share your recycling experience and inputs in the comments section below.
All of us could do with more real life ideas on how to be kinder to our environment.
