Reusable Paper Towel Alternative: Meet Bambooee

Have you been wanting to ditch paper towels but aren't ready to give up the convenience? Bambooee offers a reusable alternative.

It's a habit, right? When you have a messy spill or need to blot the oil from a batch of oven fries, you pull a paper towel off of the roll, then toss it in the trash after you're done. It's OK - we all do it. The folks at Bambooee offered to send me a roll of their reusable paper towel alternatives to try out, and I thought it would be a good chance to see how this affected my own paper towel use.

How Reusable Bambooee Works

Bambooee towels come on a roll, just like paper towels do, so you can slip it onto your paper towel holder. Each machine-washable towel is reusable up to 100 times, and the company says that one roll of 20 bamboo sheets replaces 286 paper towel rolls.

They're made from organically-grown bamboo and are reusable and machine-washable.

My Bambooee Experience

I used my Bambooee towels to wipe down the kitchen counter, clean up some sticky spills, and even wipe my baby's face. Normally I use a dish towel, sponge, or cloth napkin for things like this, but I know that a lot of folks reach for paper towels for jobs like these, and I wanted to try to simulate how most folks would use these.

One paper towel use that it hasn't replaced for us: cleaning the cat box. The reason we use paper towels and not reusable rags now is that cat urine is very toxic, and I don't trust that it will fully come out in the wash. I also wouldn't want to wash those rags with my other laundry, so it feels less wasteful to use a few paper towels than to run a load of laundry just for a few cat box rags.

We have been basically treating these like rags, using one Bambooee for a few days before tossing it in the wash. It looks a little bit messy on the counter, but if you fold it up and hang it on the oven door or over the sink, it fits well into our kitchen. I know not everyone cares about how things look, but having a tidy kitchen is important to me, since I cook a lot.

The one bummery thing about Bambooee: the sheets are not biodegradable or compostable, so when the sheet is done, it has to go in the trash. But! That's one sheet in the trash instead of 100 similarly-sized sheets of paper towels, though. The company says it's working on a compostable version, but they don't have a release date for that on their site yet.

Overall, I'd say that if you're having trouble letting go of your paper towel habit, Bambooee is a much better alternative option. If you're already using reusables, your stash of rags and dish towels is probably doing everything that Bambooee would do for you. Since the Bambooee towels are reusable up to 100 times, they might make a good replacement when your current set of rags bites the dust. How many uses do you feel like you're getting from a rag now, if you're using them: more or fewer than 100?

Want to try the Bambooee? You can find their products on their website. Their press release says that they're also available at retailers in the U.S. and in Canada, so you can look for them in stores too.