Cheeky Panda (bamboo kitchen towels)
Cheeky Panda Bamboo Kitchen Roll is a zero waste alternative to brands that are made from trees, usually cut down in Boreal forests (home to moose and grizzly bears). This brand is guaranteed to only use 100% bamboo (not mixed with other woods, like some brands).
Bamboo is the world’s fastest-growing grass (up to 3 feet a day). So even when harvesting, it quickly grows back again. It’s not local but far better than making kitchen towels from trees. Sold in paper packaging, bamboo is also very soft and absorbent.
Ideal to wipe up spills in the kitchen, they are ideal for coffee spills, sauce explosions, or when the blender lid was not on properly when you made your smoothie! These towels don’t disintegrate when they get wet, so you need less of them.
Choose from packs of 4 or 10 rolls, each one has 200 sheets. You can then safely bin used towels, and everything else is easily recycled.
Do not flush kitchen roll, it is designed to stay strong in water (so could block toilets). If the sheet is clean or lightly used, add (torn) to home compost. Oily sheets should be binned.
If using with cleaners, choose biodegradable cleaning brands (unscented for pregnancy/breastfeeding/babies and affected medical conditions). Avoid essential oils near pets (citrus oils are unsafe, so don’t use to clean floors/counters).
Each year, around 1 million trees are chopped down daily (mostly in Boreal forests that are home to moose, elk, wolves and grizzly bears), just to make kitchen roll that is then wrapped in plastic. Just imagine the effect if everyone switched to recycled paper, sugar cane or bamboo rolls instead?
Did you know that in Japan, nobody uses disposable paper towels? It’s because 11% of land is arable, so people there don’t have the luxury of creating landfills or even ‘industrial composting heaps’. If you’re fed up of sorting waste into two or three bins, know that residents of one Japanese town have to recycle into 45 categories.
Biodegradable dry wipes
If you need something a bit stronger, these biodegradable dry wipes are the next best thing. Again you bin them after use, and recycle all the packaging.
Use these as alternatives to cotton pads to wipe off make-up or nail polish, or use to clean up spills or dry your face on-the-go. Or just add water to clean mirrors, windows or shelving.
Anti-bacterial surface wipes
These anti-bacterial surface wipes are alternatives to toxic wipes sold in supermarkets. These are infused with <5% Cationic surfactant, an anti-microbial agent to help kill 99.99% of bacteria with each swipe, so ideal for safety cleaning like in surgeries and hospitals, without the usual chemicals. They can help to kill bacteria, viruses, fungi and algae.
Most packaging is recycled at home, but because the inside wrapper is made from (partly recycled) plastic, you’ll have to recycle this at supermarket bag bins, if your kerbside doesn’t recycle.
