No toilet paper in the shops? There are alternatives

Empty shelves

I was shocked to go into the supermarket and see how bare the shelves were for certain items.

I know toilet paper has been in the news and last time I went shopping there hadn’t been much, but this time there wasn’t any.

We do buy our toilet paper in bulk because we use ‘Who gives a Crap’.

We changed over to them on our journey to reduce single-use plastic, but also because they are made completely out of recycled paper. So we haven’t been affected by this and therefore hadn’t really thought about it, but what do you do if you have run out and there isn’t any in the shops?

You don't want to run out of toilet paper but you could use washable alternatives

Alternatives to toilet paper

You could use tissues, kitchen roll or even newspaper, remembering that you can’t flush that down the toilet, so you would have to bag it and bin it.

Some people use ‘family cloths’ a name for washable cloth toilet paper.

Now I’m all for using washable alternatives to single use items. We have in our household washable make-up wipes, un-paper towels, mooncups and washable sanitary towels.

Washable alternatives

I used washable nappies for both my girls. But it’s the ‘ick’ factor that has put us off family cloths. I suppose with the washable nappies we would have a full load of them every couple of days, whereas with family cloths you wouldn’t have enough to have a separate wash.

We never had a problem with smells using the washable nappies and supposedly you shouldn’t have with the family cloths, you would just use a wet bag or a bucket with a lid for storage.

It will be interesting to see if people start using more washable alternatives. If you’re interested we do sell quite a few different washable make-up wipes.

Washable make-up wipes can help to reduce use of plastic alternatives

A step too far?

But as for family cloths, I really didn’t think it was for us, but the more I think about it, we could compromise and just use it for No1s and carry on using toilet paper for No2s.

That would drastically reduce our use of toilet paper. I have some fabric that I can make them from, but I will only make them for us as I’m not sure there would be much demand for them. What do you think?

If you are interested in washable make-up wipes, click here


Leave a comment