Paper Towels ⭢ Rags, Y'all (and e-cloths)

I have embraced the Southern tradition of the kitchen rag. This is not to be confused with the kitchen towel with which we are all familiar. I have a stack of cloths from all kinds of sources, all of which are roughly the size of a dishcloth. They have come from the following places: 

• A cut up sweatshirt
• Swedish dishcloths - we'll talk about these later
• 2 different kinds of cloths from Mighty Nest
• Some dishcloths that I knitted when I was learning how to knit that have always been too heavy to be actual dishcloths
• Kitchen towels that have been sufficiently destroyed by use that they can no longer in good conscience be hung from my oven handle.

The beauty of building your collection of kitchen rags is that they can come from anywhere! In fact, I have found that having a variety of materials comes in handy for various cleaning tasks. The clean bin of them sits in my kitchen and when I need one, I grab it, use it with my favorite surface cleaner, and toss it in the laundry bin. I have about 20 and that is enough for me. 

I do have a pet, and on the occasions that he has accidents, I have a roll of paper towels that I inherited from the person who lived in my apartment before me. That was three years ago. You don’t have to get rid of everything to decrease your waste. 

A word on disinfecting wipes - I have never bought them. Not because I don’t clean - my house is the mostest cleanest, but because we never had them growing up. I generally use an orange oil based cleaner*, but I do have a diluted bleach solution that I keep for when it’s necessary. ⅓ cup of bleach in a gallon of water is the recommended dilution for household cleaning and a gallon of bleach goes a long way. And since my kitchen rags are rags, I don’t care if they get bleached. I promise you, my house is clean without them. 

The container I use for my cloths is an old cookie container and I mix up new surface cleaner in a glass spray bottle that's meant to be reused for this purpose. 

Another task for which I would typically use paper towels is cleaning windows and mirrors. This set of 2 e-cloths lets me clean all my windows and glass without any cleanser, and they go right in the washing machine. They clean without any streaks, but if my surface is really dirty, like my toothpaste covered bathroom mirror, I do sometimes preclean with a rag.

*Citra Solv concentrate works as a degreaser and can be diluted for use as a household cleanser. It smells so good!