Turn An Old Bedsheet Into A Sustainable Paper Towel Alternative

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If you had an extra $120, what would you use it for? Groceries? Gas? Or a little treat for yourself? That's around what the average household spends on paper towels every year. Why not eliminate an unnecessary expense when you can create a no-cost alternative? The next time a bed sheet gets a tear in it, let it replace your paper towels. This clever way to repurpose an old bed sheet requires little more than snipping and maybe some fray-fighting edging for you to morph it into a sustainable paper towel substitute.

Reusable cloth alternatives to paper towels have been on our radar for a while, but it's tricky to determine whether or not some actually help the environment. It requires a lot of energy to create new cloth, and ready-made reusable towels made with all new materials might be just as energy intensive as continuously purchasing some types of paper towels. Repurposing fabric you already have, however, is eco-friendly without a doubt.

Grab your scissors, a tape measure, and a piece of chalk in a different color than the sheet. For pieces that are the same size as traditional paper towels, measure and mark 11-inch squares in chalk. Because the towels' size are up to you, however, feel free to snip up batches with different dimensions. There are times when standard-sized towels are great, but half-sheet sizes are also useful for smaller messes.

Not everyone is going to love having a stack of fraying cloths on their kitchen counter. Plus, fraying edges can cause stringy messes. Rest assured, there are inventive ways to solve these problems, both by keeping fraying at bay and by creating attractive storage solutions for them that make the cloths just as easy to grab as paper towels. You can stave off the rough edges — at least for a bit — by cutting the towels with pinking shears. The ric-rac edging should hold up for a few washings. For a more durable solution, machine-sew lines of zigzag stitching (or serger edging) along the cut edges. A product like Aleene's Stop Fraying Seam Sealing Glue is another option if you don't have a sewing machine.

Now that you have a stock of tree-saving upcycled towels, store them in practical and pretty ways. You can create a roll of them to store on a standard paper towel rack. Hold onto an empty tube from your last paper towel supply, and roll the towels one at a time around the tube until it's full. Storing them in rolled in baskets is tidy and attractive enough to leave on countertops, keeping them perfectly organized and easily grabbable. A matching basket to corral used towels can also help to minimize mess and make laundry easier.