Yes, It’s Totally Possible to Live Without Paper Towels

Is there anything more tragic than rushing over to the dispenser only to realize that there are no paper towels? All that remains is a smug brown tube with a few tantalizing bits of paper towel clinging to it that serve only to mock you. So you go to get another roll, only to discover that you’re out! Now you have to put them on your shopping list.

Paper towels are one of those products where going with the cheap or off-brand is absolutely not worth it. While I’m not above getting the Wal-Mart brand of just about anything, bargain paper towels just don’t cut it. They are flimsy, scratchy, and are about as effective as the brown paper towels you remember cranking out of the dispensers in your elementary school bathroom. Y’know, the ones that pushed spilled milk around on the table instead of actually absorbing it, and then when it did finally get wet, it disintegrated into a million little shreds? See, you do remember.

All right, time to get the good kind! Buying in bulk is smart, right? A 12-pack of good paper towels can cost up to $25, which is a pretty hefty chunk of change for something you use to clean up yucky stuff and then just throw away. It’s enough to make you fall to your knees and beg the heavens for freedom from this cycle of expensive waste!

Never fear — there is a solution!

Boom, no need for paper towels or paper napkins

Let me guess, you have one more very important question — if you don’t have any paper towels, what do you use to drain your bacon? The answer is brown paper grocery bags! Anytime you fry something and want to drain it onto an absorbent surface, use a brown grocery bag. That way you’re getting another use out of the bag, and you don’t have to cave to the ridiculous pressure to buy paper towels.

It’s time to break free from the stranglehold paper towels have placed upon our kitchens and our lives. The Brawny Man might be a lumberjack, but it’s about time he gets the axe!