Ask Wirecutter: How Do I Curb My Boyfriend’s Paper Towel Addiction?

If paper towels are the first thing you reach for, put them away. Storing them in a cabinet or under the sink can help you pause before automatically grabbing them.

Sometimes stashing the paper towels isn’t enough. “I have a paper-towel problem,” senior staff writer Rachel Wharton admits. “If they are there, I will use them up, like within a day. Or an hour.”

She decided to go cold turkey and stop buying them because she could hear them calling to her from behind the cabinet door.

If you’ve decided you can’t have paper towels in the house, the most straightforward alternative is to buy more reusable towels. A lot more. “Get both nicer towels and cheap bar mops since they serve different purposes,” senior editor Marguerite Preston says.

The upfront cost for a package of bar mops or microfiber cloths is about the same as for a multipack of Kirkland Signature Paper Towels. So you’ll amortize the price of your reusable products in just a few months.

Bar mops, such as the Utopia Towels Kitchen Bar Mops, are inexpensive, lower-quality cotton cloths that you can use for messes that stain (like coffee or sriracha sauce).

Some paper-towel teetotalers like Marguerite will use bar mops for bacteria-laden tasks, including patting meat dry (then they toss the dirty cloths straight into a hot wash). Others, like our sustainability editor Katie Okamoto, will reserve a few unbleached paper towels for those kinds of tasks and then toss them in the compost.

Higher-quality kitchen towels, like Williams Sonoma All Purpose Pantry Towels, are nicer to look at. They can be reserved for drying dishes and hands or for wiping up water spills, so they don’t get too grimy too quickly.

Our large-appliance writer has a dark-horse candidate for paper-towel replacement: a microfiber towel, like the MR.SIGA Microfiber Cleaning Cloth. “It’s the only washable cloth I’ve ever found that gets close to the amazing absorbency of a paper towel,” she says. “They don’t get hard, they don’t stain, they soak up a lot of liquid, they can be wrung out easily, and they air-dry quickly.”

Rachel says she is aware of the concern about microfibers in the waste stream, so to reduce harm, she gently washes and air-dries these towels.

We’re currently working on a guide to Swedish dishcloths, which people often use as a sponge and paper-towel replacement. They’re made from cellulose fibers, are biodegradable, and can be used and washed hundreds of times before being composted. (We’ll keep you updated on what we find!)

And if your boyfriend is mopping up his messy maw with a paper towel rather than a napkin, don’t worry. We also have a guide to cloth napkins.

I keep a basket in my pantry where I can take messy-towel free throws with about 75% accuracy. My mother used to toss her towels straight down the basement steps and then pick them up on the way to the laundry room. Your bin could be under your sink. Do whatever works for your kitchen, but find a tiny hamper and remind your boyfriend to use it.

Most importantly, get into the groove of having a good laundry routine; that means go easy on the laundry detergent and absolutely forgo fabric softener. “These things will decrease the absorbency of your towels and drive you absolutely nuts when you try to wipe up big spills,” says Marguerite, who washes her towels on hot with an extra rinse cycle.

I have an entire cabinet shelf near the sink that is well stocked with my towel supply. I can open the cabinet, grab one, use it, and then hang it to dry. And because I have so many towels, there’s always a fresh one when I need it, yet I don’t feel buried in laundry. (Side note: This system can also apply to socks and underwear.)

This article was edited by Jason Chen.