Reusable Unpaper Towels

Our reusable unpaper towels are only released once each year around the holidays and it is rare for us to repeat designs from one year to the next. If you are drawn to a design when it is released, be sure to claim it while you can!

Did you know that it takes 17 trees and more than 20,000 gallons of water to make just one ton of paper towels? Yikes! But what if you never had to buy paper towels again?

Our zero waste, reusable unpaper towels help you do just that. Handmade by our founder, Krystina, this reusable alternative to paper towels will not only cut your waste, but will be a bright and beautiful addition to your kitchen. Learn more about what makes our unpaper towels so ultra-sustainable on our blog!

Our dual-layer reusable unpaper towels come in sets of 9 towels each. Each pre-washed full-size towel is approximately 10x10" and each half-size towel is approximately 5x10" with bright cotton fabric on the top and white cotton terry cloth underneath, making them super absorbent for even big messes.

The towels snap together and roll up just like paper towels. Just toss the used ones in the laundry with the rest of your household towels!

Great for kitchen cleanups, picnics, car trips, and more.

Please note that these are handmade and are designed to waste as little fabric as possible. Because of this, designs may differ slightly from those pictured.

Reusable Unpaper Towels Quick Details:

• Limited Release! Only available during the holiday season.
• Handmade to order in Tacoma, WA
  
• 100% plastic-free and vegan - all the way down to the thread
• Fabric printed in the USA with chemical-free inks
• Fabric printed on-demand, using less than one thimble-full of water to print each yard of fabric (traditional printing uses more than 10 gallons!)
• Fabric designed by independent artists who receive a commission for each set purchased
• Pre-washed and machine washable
• Reusable for many years

✨ Don't forget to grab a jar of our all-natural laundry detergent and a set of wool dryer balls to keep your unpaper towels in tip-top shape for many years to come!

Size

Each full-size towel is approximately 10.5 x 10.5". Each half-size towel is approximately 5" x 10.5". As each is handmade, size may vary slightly between each towel.

Each set comes with 9 towels.

Materials

100% Cotton Knit, 100% Cotton Terry Cloth, Metal Snaps

What's so great about the fabric?

We're a bit obsessed with these fabrics, but not just because they're oh-so-adorable (which they are, clearly 😍), but because they're sustainable and support independent artists.

Sustainability: Traditional fabric production takes more than 50 gallons of water to produce 5 yards of fabric. Our vendor prints their fabrics with a process that uses less than one thimble-full of water to produce the same amount. The inks are chemical-free, everything is printed-to-order so there is no excess wasted fabric, and any unprinted fabric pieces are fully repurposed and never sent to landfill. And to top it all off, all fabric is printed right here in the United States, reducing carbon emissions with transportation.

Supporting Independent Artists: Each fabric featured in our unpaper towels was designed by an independent artist, who receives a commission for their work when we purchase the fabric.

Care

Wash with other household towels as usual. To maintain absorbency, avoid fabric softener. Our wool dryer balls are a great alternative to fabric softener!

Packaging + End of Life

These unpaper towels will be wrapped in reused kraft paper, which can be recycled or composted.

With proper care these unpaper towels will last many, many years. (Krystina's are over 10 years old and still going strong!) But, when they do reach the end of their days, the snaps can be recycled with metal recycling and the fabric can be cut up and backyard composted or sent to a responsible textile recycler.

Origin

Handmade by Krystina right here in Tacoma, WA.

Ethical Guarantees

Give-Back Program
Made in the USA
Palm Oil Free
Vegan
Washington Local
Woman-owned

🌎 You care about the planet. So do we.

Look. I get it. It’s HARD to be an EcoWarrior. Someone who cares about the planet and wants the most sustainable products available - from the ingredients to the packaging to the way that product gets to your hands.

It seems like everywhere we turn, someone, somewhere, is greenwashing us.

But our superpower at A Drop in the Ocean is sorting through the BS, calling it out, and making sure our products are the absolute most sustainable and truly zero waste products we can find.

So on top of all the things we mentioned above about what makes our reusable unpaper towels so sustainable, here’s a few other things you should know:

• We’re actually practicing what we preach behind the scenes. In 2022, we saved all of our trash for four months, and wrote a whole blog post on it. The tl;dr version is this: in four months, we only produced two pounds of trash. Everything from the packaging our products come in down to the Sharpie we use to write “Fragile” on your box is zero waste to its core.
• We’re an online-only zero waste store - which is highly intentional. It may seem counter-intuitive, but online shopping is actually more sustainable than in-person. I’m a data nerd at heart and I love diving into the research, and there are countless studies that have shown that online shopping is the most sustainable way to get your everyday essentials. Don’t believe me? Check out our whole blog post on the sustainability of online shopping.
• We ship ugly boxes. Your order from A Drop in the Ocean is not going to arrive in a pretty, branded box. It’s gonna show up in a reused tea box, or a donated Amazon box, or maybe even an inside-out Girl Scout Cookies box. All of our shipping materials are always 100% plastic-free and reused as much as possible, with curbside-recyclable paper tape and a post-consumer recycled paper shipping label. It won’t be pretty, but it will be zero waste.

Got more questions about our zero waste products or our practices behind the scenes? Just send us an email! I’m always happy to chat all things eco.