Family Cloth: Non-Paper Toilet Paper

During an interview with Russell Crowe about his upcoming movie, Robin Hood, some reporter asked the actor about the lack of tights in the movie. There are no tights in this film, he answered, they weren’t invented until quite a few hundred years after when the story takes place.. Toilet paper is another recent invention. Until fairly recently, cloth, corncobs, pages torn from books or newspapers, leaves and mussel shells were some of the substitutes. Now, there's a movement away from paper and back to cloth.

Known as a family cloth, it usually consists of cut up washable material, often from old t-shirts. Contrary to its name, all members of a family do not share the same cloth and it is treated in the same way as one would treat cloth baby diapers. People who have switched champion it for its softness, its economy and its environmental friendliness. You can make a complete switch or you can use traditional toilet paper in some instances, for guests and for the messier eliminations.

What do you think? How green are you willing to go?

Living, etc.

Comments (20)

Just no, sorry. Next you'll be talking about cloth tampons you can wash, ring out and reinsert...oh wait, those are out there too. TP is one thing I'm not ditching.

eww. no pee-pee rag for me thanks.

Better for the environment - perhaps.
But how do you collect the soiled poo-poo rags?

In parts of south east asia a trash can placed immediately next to the toilet is the way you tell people that due to old plumbing all used toilet paper MUST go in the basket. Needless to say it is DISGUSTING.

Either use paper and flush it or dont use paper and just use a bidet.

PS this reminds me of a great innovation in toilet paper from Australia...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5kctaLxq18

I do this, just for number 1s though(I hand wash everything)

It's not nearly as gross as it sounds. There are TONS of websites that have tons of information on it.

Crunchy chicken does a challenge on it every year.

http://www.thecrunchychicken.com/

Dear jmorri--

Rather than do something that is basically a breeding ground for awful bacteria on your insides, you (or whoever) could use something like this:
http://www.divacup.com/
which is both eco-friendly and not nearly as gross as you (or anyone, including myself) thinks. I thought these were really disgusting the first time I heard of them, but the more I read, the more it made sense. Why *do* we cut down millions of trees every year just to print the sheet of instructions inside every box of tampons? Why *do* we have plastic wrap, plastic applicators, plastic wrap on the box? Why *do* we have bleached cotton that's sucking up vital potentially food-bearing nutrients from the ground?

I hate being a divacup champion on the internet, but tampons and other disposable hygeine products-- diapers, pads, etc. don't make sense to me. I haven't switched to a family cloth, but hey, who knows.

While not ready to give up toilet paper anytime soon (sorry, but we don't use paper towels!), I have always wished that they would stop including those stupid instructions with tampons - if you can't figure it out, they certainly won't help.

How about the TP companies stop packaging the rolls with multiple layers of plastic instead?

Have you guys seen the new ad for disposable hand towels that Kleenex is marketing to individual households instead of a cloth hand towel? Now THAT is a disgusting idea!

what about saving water? washing all these things doesn't necessary equal out to be more eco friendly.

Yeah, let's git the wimmen folk back to their natural duties--cleanin up after their families 'n keepin house. All these hi-falutin career wimmen with no time to take care of such things... Send 'em back home to wash the family clothes, prefrably with a good ole wash board and some homemade soap.

Sorry, but I can't do this one. This is the only paper product I buy. If they were to come up with a better invention, I would be openminded.

bmb, I was totally repulsed too when I saw the commercial for disposable hand towels. I thought we were trying to move away from this sort of thing? Sad thing is, you know some people will buy this.

Too far for me, but I'm with you, alyssaria, on the DivaCup. Hoping to get one soon because they do make a lot of sense, especially because a DC is probably better for a woman's insides than a bleached product. Even if you're not interested in the environment, it's incredibly cost-effective in the long-term.

Have never even considered it.
I know myself well enough, and I admit to be a mediocre house cleaner at best. This might be more appropriate to someone who can do better than "I ought to" when it comes to general tidiness/sanitation.
I have used cotton pads for probably 15 years, so I know that use of non-disposable products for our less savory needs requires diligence. I guess you could say I'm too lazy to go so green.

Washing cloth is nothing compared to the thousands of gallons of water it takes to make the paper pulp tampon, paper towels and toliet paper are made out of. Even bleaching the cloth product every time you wash it for the next ten years would level out with the bleach used in processing the disposable paper product.

That said, I still use paper toliet paper. I'm not sure that will change.

Wouldn't a bidet be better for the environment and less ****ing disgusting?

If I did a full laundry every two or three days I'd consider it. But I only do full loads of laundry on a weekly basis. I'm not ready for my bathroom to smell like a diaper pail.

I make up for it in many ways. I even use cloth handkerchiefs!

I'm another who can not get rid of her toilet paper, but we do use cloth squares to dry our hands after washing them. I made a bunch of them after noticing this system at my daughter's pre-school. Good way for a family of 5 to avoid spreading germs by using the same towel. Now if I could only get my babies to stop chewing on me...

I have occasionally used a washcloth for #1 when I've found the roll empty, so I don't have a good reason not to do that all the time, but I don't think I could bear going cloth for #2.

I agree with above comments - a bidet appeals to me more than paper OR cloth. If we ever remodel our bathroom, it's at the top of my list.

Urine is sterile, so I could see maybe using cloth for that, but for anything involving human feces? Yeah, not sure I want to run that through my washing machine. Not even on hot and loaded with bleach.

I'll stick to the cheap, easily dissolved, septic-tank friendly TP, thanks.

We cloth diaper so also using the cloth wipes for number #1 is no big deal at all. I won't keep doing it when we are (someday) done with diapers.