Are Paper Napkins More Environmentally Friendly?

This piece notes that the footprint may be smaller if a big business (think restaurant) uses paper. They’ve got calculations to back it up. While they do err on the side of cloth still being better for home use, they got their calculations by factoring in typical cotton napkins not organics or other fabrics (although they do mention other fabric choices).

I like the piece but in my opinion they did not comment enough about the huge long life span of cloth napkins in the home. Treehugger factored in a year of washing for cloth napkins in the home, but something to consider is that cloth napkins last a lot longer than one year. So when factoring in the energy and materials used to make cloth napkins you also need to note that they’ll last for many years around the house.

You should also factor in alternative fabrics. You can buy organic cotton, flax, hemp, and other napkins vs. conventional cotton. As for the use factor, all of the cloth napkins I’ve ever owned last for about 4-5 years – although by year 4 they are getting a little blah. Once a napkin is too icky to use as a napkin, I switch it over to a cleaning cloth, where I’ll use it until it dies. This means you get super life out of a napkin and get to use cloth not paper towels to clean with which saves even more resources.

Overall they are saying that cloth is best in the home though, and obviously I agree. Read more about cloth napkins here:

• How cloth napkins save you money
• Benefits of cloth napkins
• Make Easy, No-Sew Cloth Napkins in Five Minutes

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Like I said in my previous post, I’m willing to make changes in my life so that I can buy green products, even when they’re more expensive. You can omit quite a few products from your life than totally gets rid of the need for green or conventional products – like you don’t need separate cleanser for the tub and toilet. However, there are some products you can’t do without, or at least I haven’t been able to figure out how. Items like toilet paper, soap, dish washing detergent, organic produce, recycled computer paper, and so on are items you may need, and should buy green, but, it’ll cost you.

To balance the costs I’m going to start sharing some green things that will save you money so that you can buy the products that are necessary. I’ll try to include calculations when possible to make it more realistic.

Today let’s start with an obvious one…

Use cloth napkins instead of buying paper – I’ve never bought paper napkins in my entire life, so I honestly did not know what they cost. My mom used cloth, I’ve always used cloth, so I looked it up. You can get 400 conventional paper napkins for $35.99 at Amazon. In a family of four that’s three (at least) meal times a day. In a year the four of you would eat around 1095 meals together. Using four napkins per meal equals 4380 napkins or almost 11 packs of napkins per year. Which amounts to about $400.00 a year in paper napkins. That’s if you only use one each per meal.

Now, if you buy everyone in your family of four enough organic cotton napkins for three days worth of meals you’d need a set of 36 cloth napkins. I’m assuming you don’t want to wash them every day, so I figured in enough for about three days. I found some nice ones for $22.99 which means you’ll spend a total of $206.00 for the napkins. I’ve seen organic napkins for less though, and also you could skip the organic and pick up 36 nice thrift store napkins for about $1-2 each, making your total cost about $72.00 at the most plus gas to drive to the the thrift store.

In one year you can save anywhere from $194 to $364 by using cloth napkins.

However, you also have to factor in usage and water and energy costs.

Personally I think it’s dumb to use the old argument, “But I have to wash them – that costs water and energy!” If you’ve ever washed cloth napkins you’ll know that they use up almost no space in your washer. 36 napkins won’t even amount to a small load. I always throw them in with my other laundry, which frankly, I have to wash anyhow, so water, soap, and energy costs are a moot point.

If you want to argue this though we can. I checked around and there are different estimates on how much it costs to wash one load of laundry on cold using your dryer set on medium to dry. The costs ranged from about 12 cents to 34 cents depending on where I looked. We’ll use the top range; 34 cents.

According to the book The Tightwad Gazette, it takes about 200 napkins in your typical sized washer to make a full load. That’s worth washing your own set of 36 napkins about 5 times, or about 24 full loads of napkins per year, which works out to around $8.00 a year – even if you add in soap costs, it’s clear that washing cloth napkins can’t outweigh the costs of buying paper. You’re still saving a ton of money.

Then you have to factor in the savings from long-term use. I’ve had cloth napkins my whole life, and the typical life span is four to five years of hard core use as napkins, and then I use them for another two years as cleaning rags, which saves the cost of paper towels.

Let’s add it all up:

Four year’s worth of organic cloth napkins for a family of four =

• $206.00 initial cost
• About $50 for four years worth of washing (and I rounded up big time for soap use and energy fluctuation)
• Total cost of nice organic cloth napkins for four years = $256.00

Four year’s worth of disposable paper napkins for a family of four =

• $1,600 ongoing purchase costs
• $143 the extra costs of one extra pack a year, because anyone with little kids is lying if they say they really only use one napkin each per every single meal.
• Total cost of basic paper napkins for four years = $1,743

Savings with cloth napkins over four years = $1,487

In other words, enough right there to buy all the organic apples and bleach free detergent you need.

Don’t forget, I use the cloth napkins for about 1-2 years to clean, which is an additional savings of hundreds of dollars in paper towels. I also calculated using the nicer organic napkins but you can get nice ones for a fraction of that at thrift stores. Also, we haven’t even discussed how many trees I saved using cloth. The actual savings are much more far reaching than simply monetary costs. If you use recycled paper napkins you pay about $600 a year so this is one case where using recycled won’t help you out. Recycled napkins actually make cloth look even better because over four years you save $2,194 by using cloth over recycled.

Whew, I hope someone finds this useful, because seriously all this math has shot my brain. Have I convinced you to switch to cloth napkins or do you have a good argument for paper?

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Here are some of the small green steps you can try with your family this year:

Use Cloth Napkins

Remove Plastic Beverage Lids

Smart Paint Disposal

Refillable Liquid Hand Soap

Silicone Baking Cups

Ditch the Air Fresheners

We also do a fair amount of tree hugging around here. So far, we’ve hugged many different trees:

• Cedar
• Heirloom Peach Tree
• Almond
• Autumn Trees
• Lemon
• The Pumpkin Tree
• Binary Tree
• The Chocolate Tree
• Sugar Maple
• Edible Tree
• Douglas Fir
• Red Flowering Dogwood

Wow. That’s a lot of tree love. Anyone else notice how many food-minded trees I hug? I must like snacks.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

We have usable cloth napkins we bought over five years ago. Our now scrappy and unusable napkins are used for dusting and cleaning. Pretty soon they’re going to biodegrade right at our house they’re used so much. To keep them looking good throw them in a wash when you do a load of cold delicates.

I found some inexpensive organic cotton napkins ($3.99 for one) at The Organic Hearth.

Or you could splurge and get a hearty set of four sustainable hemp or hemp/cotton napkins that are hand embroidered with your choice of design at Shoji Designs. But these napkins will last forever and come in beautiful colors of hemp; natural, spruce, ivory, or brown. And the embroidery is amazing.

Paper accounts for the largest amount of solid landfill waste. This one small step can save trees, cut down on landfill waste, and make your table nicer all at the same time.

Remember all the small steps you complete add up to many steps and a happy healthier earth.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family