OT - Do you recycle your towels?

[Tiffany_MommyOf3]

I own an eco-friendly kids store LOL -so of course I reuse. We all reuse once and then grab a new one.

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

NO WAY would I ever re-use a towel, well, except a hand towel and I still use one or 2 a day. Do you know what kind of bacteria is growing on those towels, now that is ICKY There are 3 of us in my house and I only wash towels every other day. DH uses one towel a day and Dcousin 17 uses 2 a day and I use 1 on a day when I don't wash my hair, but normally use 2.


Because of the sign at the Disney resorts, we tried re-using towels, as in to throw on the floor to step out of the shower on, but mousekeeping ended up taking them everyday anyway.

Suzanne

 

[pyrxtc]

We reuse and my mother thinks it's disgusting. I don't get it?? We don't reuse facecloths though. We do re-wear our jeans sicne we don't wear them for long each day.

As far as remembering what part of the towel touched where, just watch where the tag is or the design is and always use it that way. I use my hair towel to wipe my face dry before I wrap my hair in it.

 

[dislal]

I was at a store the other day (I can't remember where) but they had a towel that said butt on one end and face on other end I guess that is what everyone needs I don't reuse towel I think it is icky I use one of the hair wrap towels for my hair and I do wash that about once a week but my towel and washrag are nice clean ones every time.


As for kids getting showers my DS8 just started showering at the beginning of this school year, only because his sisters where calling him a baby I still like getting a bath once in a while

 

[labdogs42]

We reuse our towels. I have a nice towel rack to hang them on in the bathroom and they are always nice and dry when I need them the next day. I wash towels and sheets once a week. i can't imagine how much laundry I'd be doing if we used "new" towels every day!

ETA, I have a hair/face towel and a body towel.

 

[squirrel]

I'm on my own and see no good reason why I need a new towel every shower. Washcloths I don't usually reuse.

At Disney, the mousekeeper seemed to give new ones even when I hung it up and only put the dirty ones in the bathtub. Seemed like the sheets get changed quite a bit also. We were there for 2 weeks.

 

[quasar4legs]

We reuse towels, but everyone has their own.
I'm in australia and we are always worried about water usage and I tend do the same even when we are holidays.
If you've got spare water in the US we could sure use some down under.

Cheers Trish

 

[ezacoo]

Trish, I was about to say the same thing!

We are on severe water restrictions here:

~no watering lawns
~no watering concrete (!)
~can only hand-water plants/flowers between the hours of 8pm and 10pm on even-numbered days, no sprinkler systems
~can't use water to wash windows, cars
~need permission to top up a swimming pool
~etc

No way would I be doing that much washing!


BTW, this is not meant to be offensive to those that do wash their towels everyday, just explaining the situation here and why I'm not able to.

 

[quasar4legs]

ezacoo,
We now think about water in a very different way than when we did while growing up. We've put a timer in the shower to try and ensure that everyone sticks to their alloted 4 minutes of water.
These days I can't ever imagine going back to the good old unlimited water days, it is sort of ingrained in our household now and I guess was long over due when you live in such a dry place.
We've had some rain this week so what is left of the garden is looking a little better.

Cheers
Trish

 

[Melissa]

New towel every time. DH hangs his up for another use but not me or dd.

 

[fortheluvofpooh]

I'm just curious if this is a common practice.

I grew up in a family of 5 where my mom worked. So I've been doing my own laundry since I was 12. Growing up, each of us had our own set of towels (bath size, med size) that we would use after showering and then hang up to dry on our hook. We would re-use these same towels a couple of times before they would get washed. My mom thought it was ridiculous to use 'fresh' towels everytime we showered because we were obviously clean after showering and this practice was unnecessary, and wastefully time consuming in terms of laundry. I remember not liking this practice as a kid. Even then I wanted fresh, clean towels everytime I showered (even though I obviously, didn't get them). So, this was normal to me and my family growing up.

Hotels now ask if you want new towels daily, and I've seen it discussed in threads, so I know that others do this too. I wondered how common it is. I understand that environmentally speaking it is better. However, from the day I've been out on my own I've never reused a towel. We (my family of 6 now) have always taken a fresh, clean towel everytime that we wash/shower in any way. Let me tell you the towel laundry piles up quickly! That's a minimum of 2 facecloths, one towel per person per day (for us girls 2 towels 'cuz we need one to wrap our hair out of the shower). I can wash all our towels and facecloths and then two days later be amazed at how the linen closet is about empty and the laundry hamper in the bathroom is full.

My sister, however has always continued with the reusing of towels in her family. They do the exact same thing as we did growing up, each has a hook to dry their set of towels on. They get washed after a few uses. Whenever I go to her house she rolls her eyes at me because I always ask for new towels. She thinks I'm ridiculous and acting "rich & fancy". Sometimes I'll reuse once just to be a good "guest", but I feel icky about it. I just keep thinking that after I've used a towel to dry myself off in some certain "regions" that are albeit clean, I don't want the same part of the towel drying my face next time. KWIM?

Anyway, not trying to be offensive or start a debate or anything, I'm just curious how many people do this. As I said, given that the hotels are now asking if they must change the towels, and some posters have said they don't require daily changes, I assume it's a pretty common practice.

And I'm not a clean freak or anything. I don't care about the sheets at hotels or at home. I change them out weekly at home, so I don't require daily changes at the hotel. I'd expect one change if I was there for two weeks. If they are done more often - great (I love the feel of a crisp clean bed, who doesn't?) but I don't require it. But I'm sure some people feel that's icky!. And I guess that's my point.

So are you a towel recycler?

okay, we reuse towels here, so I dont get the whole fresh towel daily thing, but to each their own. However when I go to someone elses home, I agree with you, you want a fresh towel. Why on earth would you want to dry your hands on a towel that touched someone elses feet? So I agree with you there.

 

[KristinU]

We do laundry once a week so that's how often a towel gets washed. It has never even occurred to me to do it any other way. That's what my mom did, that's what my aunt does when we visit her for a week, we don't ask for new towels daily at hotels (unless they choose to go ahead and replace them) To be honest, it never occurred to me that everyone didn't do something similar until I was reading a forum (maybe it was here) sometime within the last few years, where someone said that they washed their towels daily.

Helen

I could have written this! This is exactly my procedure, thoughts, etc.

I think it is extremely wasteful and environmentally unfriendly to do otherwise.

And that too - we're pretty "green" (cloth napkins, navy showers, line dry most things, etc.) I can't phathom washing towels every day.

As far as germs and stuff go...we're not dead yet! Nor do we have any sort of wierd skin conditions or cooties or anything like that

It does wierd me out when I'm at someone's house and they don't have a hand towel...I thought everyone used hand towels for after washing hands, but I guess not. I'm not nuts about using somebody's body towel to dry my hands... Now hand towels I'll change mid-week, so two per week on those but one per week on the body towels, which get hung on the towel bars in our designated spots (which come to think of it, always coincide with our sides of the bed for DH and me!)

 

[PrincessSuzanne]

ezacoo,
We now think about water in a very different way than when we did while growing up. We've put a timer in the shower to try and ensure that everyone sticks to their alloted 4 minutes of water.
These days I can't ever imagine going back to the good old unlimited water days, it is sort of ingrained in our household now and I guess was long over due when you live in such a dry place.
We've had some rain this week so what is left of the garden is looking a little better.

Cheers
Trish

How do you possibly shower in 4 minutes? It takes me 10 to shower when I don't wash my hair and 15 to 20 when I do wash my hair.

We sometimes have water restricition in the summer if it hasn't rained much, but we don't water our lawn and I have a brown thumb, so no plants and we don't have a swimming pool or wash our cars at home. I don't wash everyday wither, only towels every other day and work clothes once a week. DH washes a couple of loads of work clothes once a week and Dcousin does her laundry once a week. We don't have a dishwasher, so dishes have to be washed the old fashioned way and since we use paper plates, we don't have to do dishes very often either.

As much as I pay for water, I am darn sure going to use it.

Suzanne

 

[crisi]

Reuse towels. Did growing up.

 

[bookgirl]

I reuse body towels (but I really prefer to air dry since it's better for your skin, so I only use the towel for wrapping around me). I only use washcloths once. We have hand towels that stay up for a few days at a time before they get washed.


I do rewear some clothes, nothing that touches any place sweaty (underclothes/socks etc) but sweat shirts, sweaters, pull overs, even pants I will reuse if they are not "dirty".

Mostly I do it to save on laundry and wear and tear on clothes. But now it is nice to think it does help the eco system just a bit.

My mom refuses to reuse anything.

I do take 10 to 15 minute showers, can't seem to cut them down, however I do brush my teeth in the shower in the am and turn off the faucet when I brush at night.

 

[quasar4legs]

You are right it isn't easy to wash in 4 minutes but these days that's what they are suggesting as a reasonable target. There is no mucking about, it is a commando kind of operation.

We have no problem paying for the water but there just isn't enough so us aussies are all learning to be more water conscious. I sure do miss the days of standing under the shower for 20mins. There are some rural areas that are so short of water they are trucking in their supplies and even the local community swimming pools have been drained.

Trish

 

[abcboys]

We reuse towels here too. I don't know exactly how long we use them. Probably anywhere from 2-5 times depending. It does not gross me out or anything like that. We reuse cause I don't want that much more laundry to do and it just seems wasteful.

 

[MALE*RN*777]

Ours start out for home bathing then camping bathing then dog bathing then vehicle cleaning then we sew the millions of threads of 10 towels back together at the end to make one nice towel again.

 

[WantToGoNow]

It takes about 10 minutes total to wash, dry, and fold a load of towels.

What kind of washer/dryer do you have? Our washer takes about 30 minutes, the dryer atleast an hour to get towels dry and then the 10 minutes or so to put them away.

We have a family of 5 and we do reuse towels - we have quite enough laundry as it is. The machine is running every day with atleast a load. And as for drying that area -- you washed it didn't you?

My dh and I will rewear our pants once. We don't rewear shirts. My kids don't rewear anything - they're never clean enough to. Ds7 won't rewear a pair of pants the next day even if he only had them on a couple of hours -- but if I'm not careful, he will rewear his undies.

 

[carj]

Nope, we all get a fresh one every time. I don't really care if anyone else in the world does though. Re-use if that makes you happy!

The only thing that we will re-wear around here are jackets. Even those I don't like the kids to wear more than a few days without washing. It seems like once they wear a jacket to school, they come home smelling like someone else's kid! My son sat next to a little girl whose family smoked and every day, he smelled like smoke too. (He was in Kindergarten so I am pretty sure it wasn't my 5 year old sneaking ciggies!)