Photo from www.mental-hygiene.orgThis week my family was hit with a horrible cold virus.
Sarah started first on Sunday, followed by Melissa and me on Tuesday, and Michael on Wednesday.
This wasn't just the sniffles, but a full-out assault on sinuses, throats and energy levels that still has us recuperating.
Most colds are miserable but don't land us in bed. This one, however, left us all but incapacitated for days. Even Michael, who never misses work for illness, called in sick three days in a row.
Fortunately we fell in succession, so there was always someone to fetch orange juice, cold medicine and more Kleenex. Zachary has yet to succumb; thankfully he could still walk the dogs and make grocery store runs for supplies.This morning, while viewing the aftermath of empty Kleenex boxes, juice cartons, and bags of used tissues, I counted up the number of boxes of Kleenex we used last week.
It was more than 15.
I kid you not, we produced more than 15 Kleenex boxes worth of snot in one week.
So now, as the sneezing subsides and energy slowly returns, in addition to a disastrously messy house - there's even fur in the cobwebs, folks - I'm faced with environmental guilt.
While trying to find out how many trees are in a box of Kleenex, I came across this Greenpeace site explaining that Kimberly-Clark, the makers of Kleenex and many other disposable paper products, uses mostly virgin fiber from clear cut ancient forests to make its products.
Most of the company's products, including Kleenex, use no recycled fiber at all.
None.
I'd hate to think how we would have survived this virus with hankies, but people used to do it. Even using the softest tissues available, we're all sporting Rudolph noses. Would flannel reusable tissues be as soft? Softer?
Plus, who would end up washing all those goobery, snotty rags?
That's a rhetorical question, by the way.
I know who.
Kleenex were invented in 1924 as an applicator for cold cream. In 1926 the company was surprised by how many customers said they used Kleenex as disposable handkerchiefs. The company listened, and by 1930, Kleenex was marketed as just that; disposable tissues.
So, I'm off to take another dose of cold medicine, drink another cup of coffee, and ponder the practicality of reusable snot rags.
Kermit was right.
It's not easy being green.
5 comments:
My kiddo was hit with a brutal cold week before last (still having the post-cold cough and a bit of a snotty nose). We started off using my homemade hankies -- most are flannel, some are old t-shirts -- but I just couldn't keep up. He'd go through them before I needed to wash a load of towels (I wash towels & hankies on hot), and it wasn't feasible to wash and dry just a small load of hankies as quickly as he was going through them. So we bought some boxes of Puffs with Lotion, and he went through them like crazy. The snot production has eased up enough that he can start using hankies again.
The flannel and old cut-up t-shirts are much softer and durable than tissues with lotion. The regular mens' hankies (those thin white things) aren't cold-worthy in my opinion -- way too thin.
It's definitely cheaper for day-to-day use to buy some flannel on sale, cut it into whatever size hankies you want, and then zigzag stitch the edges to keep them from fraying (just cutting them with pinking shears doesn't prevent that -- I tried it). It's even cheaper to take old t-shirts and cut them into hankies (tho you need a lot of t's to equal a nice supply of hankies).
On a regular basis, we don't ever dirty up all our hankies before laundry gets done, so it doesn't make sense for me to buy more fabric to make more hankies for "just in case" someone has a cold -- when someone has a cold, we'll buy some Puffs with Lotion to supplement our homemade hankies. The rest of the time, homemade hankies are our go-to item for nose issues. We've saved a lot of grocery money not having to buy hankies for day-to-day use.
Cloth handkerchiefs are sadly only an attractive option when constant nasal dripping isn't a problem. I do, however, keep them on hand for regular wiping-up needs -- and it's even fine during allergy season, which has frequent sneezes but not a lot of runny noses. I also avoid major brands (such as Kimberly Clark) in favor of recycled-paper tissues. Seriously, if I'm blowing my nose, I don't really need to do it in virgin timber, do I?
One trick for avoiding Rudolph nose during a cold is applying antibiotic ointment (or even just Vaseline) for the first couple days, before your nostrils even start feeling raw and chapped. Keeps the skin better moisturized and decreases the overall irritation.
It really is hard when the tissues pile up in the garbage.... I remember my father always uses handkerchiefs, both when he didn't have a full fledged cold and even when he did. He actually had a whole sock-drawer full of thick white cotton handkerchiefs (not at all the flimsy kind). I don't know how he did it, as you say, the full impact of a rough cold is, well, rough.
I always use basic cotton handtowels for handwiping at dinner, etc (again, the thick rougher cotton, not the fancy kind), just in light of the mess I make and the piles of paper napkins that would result otherwise!
We have already used cloth napkins for nigh on 15 years now, so I suppose some cloth hankies is the next logical step.
I don't know how to sew, though I have a machine. As soon as I can walk normally again (broken foot) I'll check out that stitch suggestion and see if I can figure it out!
What's a good size?
Karen, i can zigzag for you.
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