Many years ago I saw an article online with the title “Family gives up toilet paper for a year” and of course it got my attention. My first thought was that they were either completely giving up hygiene, or they were deciding to shower after using the bathroom. Turns out that both of those ideas were wrong.
Although I had never thought about it, I learned that there is a perfectly reasonable alternative to toilet paper. It’s something often called “family cloths” and is just small cotton towels, often made from cutting up old clothes, sheets, or towels, that are used and then washed to be reused.
I was immediately interested and I mentioned it to my wife. She was reluctant, but willing to go along with it. She was always much more of an environmentalist/conservationist that I was, and I thought she would be more excited about the idea. She was actually the one who originally got me into the idea of being more careful with toilet paper usage, and had gotten me in the habit of never ripping off more than two squares to wipe myself.
We researched it a little more and bought a small trash can with a sealing lid where we could store the used cloths before washing them. I was already in charge of doing the laundry, and we agreed that I would never let dirty cloths sit for more than three days without being washed. This meant a commitment of time of my part, but I was willing to do it.
On a certain day, we agreed we would officially give up toilet paper, and she took the remaining rolls we had in the house to her office.
I remember the first few times that I wiped myself with clothes, I wondered why it took me so long have this idea, and I was pretty sure I would never be going back to paper. I was definitely happy that a few days later my wife told me that she was really enjoying the cloths and was no longer skeptical about the idea.
It’s been more than six years now since I’ve had toilet paper in the house.
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