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Switch to cloth napkins at work regularly

Why This is Green

There are many great and green reasons to BYO meals to work. When you pack your lunch in reusable containers, it makes sense to bring real silverware, a reusable water bottle, and a cloth napkin, too.

Cloth napkins that you wash and reuse instead of paper napkins that you use once and throw away save natural resources (trees!) and help minimize the amount of garbage you contribute to landfills. Science backs up this common sense choice: in a life-cycle assessment (this is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects and potential impacts of a product or process) of cloth versus paper napkins, Treehugger.com declared cloth the winner with about ½ the total impact.

The same assessment found linen to be more eco-friendly than cotton, in terms of both energy and water used. Any way you look at it, reusable napkins beat paper hands down. If the cloth napkins happen to be linen, vintage, or organic cotton, so much the better. It also feels nicer to wipe your hands and mouth with cloth—a moment of home as you eat over your keyboard.

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How To

Pull out those cloth napkins that sit in a drawer waiting for special occasions and put them to use every day—at home and at work. Don’t have any? Stock up.

Get into a routine of bringing your napkins home to wash once a week unless they’re really dirty. Leave a spare in a desk drawer.

Wash napkins in cold water with other clothes so the load is full.