Paper vrs not-paper

[wallacla]

Agree with nitenites
We have been using cloth napkins since we were first married. I actually still have some of the sets we received as wedding gifts. I have never used paper for everyday. Don't use that many paper towels either. As others have mentioned I keep old cloths and rags for bad jobs and to wipe up a spill on the floor and then they go to the laundry. As someone else mentioned, these things go in my regular laundry. i don't do separate loads. Even when all my kids were still at home, 5 cloth napkins went into a towel load or something else. Same with the dish towels. My kids were relatively healthy.
Personally I worried more about the cleanliness of their bathrooms growing up. Their bedrooms too at times for that matter

[Kristen.C]

The only paper products we use are tissues and toilet paper. I do keep a roll of paper towels around, but one roll will last us weeks as we don't use them regularly.

Honestly, there was never an increase in my bill for water, gas, or electricity when we made the switch. I have a hamper basket in the kitchen that the soiled napkins, dish cloths/towels go into at the end of each day. It's not enough to make an additional load, and they usually they hitch a ride with the bath towels. The only additional effort required on my part is folding them when they come out of the dryer.

One thing I did notice a big change in is the huge reduction in how much garbage went out of our house. It's just DH and I, but we don't even come close to filling up a garbage bag before trash day.

[pebblesminidash]

We used cloth everything when I was growing up and my brother and I were rarely, very rarely sick. Needless to say, I use cloth too.

[lauramama2]

We use a bit of both. We always ave TP but that is the only paper we are never without and I can say 100% there is no increased illness when we run out of paper towels. I don't even keep tissues on hand because for the rare cold we just use TP. I draw the line at cloth for TP and handkerchiefs, to me personally its yuck, but like others have said, if you put out a kitchen cloth for only drying hands it doesn't get dirty because you are drying clean hands.

We keep a cloth hanging at the kitchen sink for drying hands, a cloth on the counter for drying counters, a wet rag on the faucet for wiping counters, cloths in the bathroom for drying hands. We use paper towels at meals generally, but if we run out we just grab face cloths.

We homeschool so the only exposure the kids get to other kids germs is from extra curricular things (dance, sports, scouts, field trips) but for what it is worth other than a few minor colds and mine and my mothers chronic stuff (which has nothing to do with germs) we are healthy. My kids have been to the doctor once in the last 3 years and that was for shots/check ups. We have only been homeschooling for those 3 years, but in my daughters 9 years and my sons almost 7 years they have been on antibiotics twice each.

On the other hand, growing up my mom was germaphobic always bleaching everything and my brother and I were always sick. I think I spent more time on antibiotics than I did off! I also spent the first 2 years of my daughters public schooling with virus after virus until my immune system learned how to fight them.

Sanitary is good, but there is such a thing as too clean imho.