cloth napkins are the green way to go!

Using cloth napkins is one way you can contribute to the green movement in the world. Using cloth napkins shrinks your carbon footprint. Every paper napkin not used is saving trees and lessoning our garbage waste.

If every day we use three napkins, we are using and disposing of 1,095 paper napkins per year. Why not use cloth? Some argue it costs more to use cloth napkins due to the cost of washing the cloth napkins. If you compare costs of buying paper napkins and laundering cloth napkins, you would find that's not true.

According to Amy Dacyczyn, author of The Complete Tightwad Gazette (Villard Books, 1998) using cloth napkins can save you money—at least $4.38 per year or more, depending on how you launder them.

The cheapest paper napkins cost 50 cents per 120, or .40 of a cent each. Washing and machine-drying cloth napkins cost .30 of a cent each. For a family of four using three napkins a day (one at each meal), paper napkins would cost $17.52 per year versus cloth napkins cost of $13.14.

However, because most people throw their cloth napkins in with existing loads, the extra cost of laundry is practically negligible. Four napkins thrown into a load of perma press or kitchen towels at the end of the day costs no more than running that load of perma press without them, raising your savings even further.

People who use cloth napkins are winners for two reasons—saving the environment and saving money.