Etiquette Part 2

[XeniA]

People who wash their kitchen linens (dish cloths, hand towels, potholders...etc) with their clothing gross me out. No matter how many dryer sheets that they use, there is a telltale smell.

I do think this indicates a laundry problem rather than the necessary results of a disgusting habit. I always wash all the above together with our clothing and I promise you, my laundered things always smell, well, freshly laundered and nothing else.

I do use a pre-wash (sometimes, not always) and a good hot wash for the whites, and if something is ultra-disgusting I'll give it a wash by hand first. But that's all. I think you need to consider the possibility that your washer isn't doing a thorough enough job. I don't mean to be rude or to insult you, but I really don't think a washer which agitates properly and rinses well should leave smelly clothes!

 

[TexanFrench]

In our house tonight, I put the tablecloth, flowers and condiments on the table, before dinner, cooked, then served the plates (blue and white stoneware--use it everyday and holidays) at the stove, and put them in the service pass-through, along with the glasses, cutlery and paper napkins, which DH set on the table. Real tablecloth and paper napkins! (In the old days, my cloth napkins always seemed to disappear. I think they got up in the middle of the night and sneaked out to the garage to have adventures where they weren't supposed to be--hanging around those polishing cloths, having wild parties, and coming back blotchy and sick.)

 

[StirBlue]

It's not the washer, it's just me. I cannot put unrelated things together in the washer. Not meant to offend your techniques.

 

[licia]

We don't use our cloth napkins over and I don't use a tablecloth unless we eat in the dining room, even then we sometimes use placemats. I only use the napkins once and the tablecloth once. We aren't nasty, but I just like to put them immediately in the washer after use, therefore, no stains. I've never seen what the big deal is about washing small loads often. I do laundry every day and most of the time never have to do a big load, unless it is sheets. I know people who only do laundry once a week or even some when they start running out of things. I'd rather keep my done all the time than have to think about it. It doesn't require more water or detergent than otherwise.

 

[Nicholas Mosher]

I run a treatment plant for a papermill at night. We produce about 30 tractor trailers of solid waste a week to treat tissue paper making waste. This doesn't include the enormous amount of electricty, oil, chemicals, and disposable equipment. Remember, this is just treating the waste of the papermaking process. You also need to figure out the logging, transportation, energy/chemicals/disposable equipment in making the paper, packaging, shipping of final product, and then all the waste it creates in landfills between the waste and packaging/transportation of the waste.

With a cloth napkin you have a similar process, but it occurs only once. Treating water for taps, using a single detergent (or bleach), and the amount of electricity to operate a washer is peanuts compared to the environmental impact of disposable products. That water then goes to a municipal treatment plant, but there is hardly anything to treat with wash water. The bleach evaporates, and the amount of actual BOD involved with "messy" cloth napkins is close to nothing.

Most of the tissue we make is composed of recycled paper, but the paper being recycled came from somewhere too, and it can only be recycled once... sometimes twice.

I also keep a few cloth bags in my vehicle for when I get groceries to avoid consumption of plastic. May not seem like much, but multiplied over 300 million people day in and day out and it has a huge impact!

 

[XeniA]

I buy all of what you say, Nicholas, and agree that manufacturing of paper has an environmental impact, although as disposables go, at least it's biodegradable which helps me sleep a bit at night!

However, the creation of nice fresh water flowing through the taps and the creation of electricity for washing, drying, and ironing all have environmental impact as well.

I doubt we're really in disagreement. None of these things should be used thoughtlessly or wastefully! (If anybody has a suggestion for how to wipe a dirty mouth and grubby fingers that doesn't involve at least some negative impact on the environment, I'm open to hearing it!)

 

[TexanFrench]

Nick, you've convinced me of the error of my ways. Guess I'll dig out the napkin rings again...

(Still gonna use nose tissues when I have a cold, though... That is a special occasion...)

 

[Nicholas Mosher]

Yeah, TP is pretty important too. Thats how I know that my employer will always be running and I will always have a job...

I still use paper towels for some things, like blotting the surface/cavities of meats before searing/sauteeing/roasting. Anything that will cause my cloth towels/napkins to stink after a day in my laundry basket sees a paper towel (especially poultry and fish!). A cloth napkin with a teaspoon of BBQ sauce or a bit of food from wiping the corners of your mouth isn't going to smell. Most things have enough salt/sugar/acid in them to prevent bad things from happening anyways.

It does cost a few more bucks at first to buy a few dozen cloth napkins, but I've been using the same ones for about three years now.

One of the worst things right now is baby diapers. You wouldn't believe the problems those things cause! They take up lots of room in landfills, obviously smell terrible, and bring havok to many pieces of equipment. We don't deal with them at my plant as we are primarily Industrial waste (from the paper mill), but I've seen demonstrations of what they can do. We have grinders that are simply two shafts with what looks like interlocking knives up and down them. They sit meshed together in a channel, and all the flow passes through them (grinding up any solids so it won't plug up pumps, smaller lines, etc.). A solid steel wrench will pass through in a split-second like nothing and be turned into shavings. A baby diaper will back-up the entire channel as the grinder jams up, reverses direction, and then continuously attempts to re-grind it before having to reverse direction again. It can take up to half a minute for one to process a single diaper!

The plastic on them has a predicted life in landfills of in excess of 10,000 years... Same goes for most of the other plastic waste we send to the landfills. It's why when I do consume, I usually choose paper over plastic. Plastic is primarily made of petroleum too, so it increases our dependence on fossil fuels, and foreign resources.

Another tip is to look for and choose unbleached paper products over the pristine white ones. Some pretty nasty chemicals are used to bleach paper products. The unbleached are just as clean/sterile. Same goes for colored papers, which are usually bleached before hand (especially lighter colors like yellow or pink).

Anyhoo, just my opinion.

 

[suzyQ3]

I do think this indicates a laundry problem rather than the necessary results of a disgusting habit. I always wash all the above together with our clothing and I promise you, my laundered things always smell, well, freshly laundered and nothing else.

I do use a pre-wash (sometimes, not always) and a good hot wash for the whites, and if something is ultra-disgusting I'll give it a wash by hand first. But that's all. I think you need to consider the possibility that your washer isn't doing a thorough enough job. I don't mean to be rude or to insult you, but I really don't think a washer which agitates properly and rinses well should leave smelly clothes!

I have to agree with you here. I"ve never been big on sorting laundry, other than the obvious color problems. And I've never had a smell problem -- that I know of.

I mean, isn't that what the machine is for -- to clean whatever you put in it? I don't know that I've gone out of my way to put anything "gross" in with with tableware items, but I certainly have washed four cloth napkins (we use place mats, so no tablecloths) with my regular loads.

I wonder whether the IDEA is more the problem than the actual reality. Then again, we all have our own habits that make sense to us and make us feel better, so there you are.

 

[StirBlue]

Nicholas Mosher: Can you please tell me how to get fish oil out of my table cloth?

We also have a lovely silk necktie back from the dry cleaners with fish oil still on it and a note saying it could not be removed.

 

[Dina]

How many of you actually set the table on a daily basis as opposed to putting food on plates, grabbing a fork, and sitting down? Would setting place mats, napkins, and forks count as setting the table. My daughter is in charge of that, while I usually serve on plates (sometimes styrofoam ones), hubby serves the drinks and our son washes dishes.

Does anyone have an aversion to putting jars or bottles of food or drink on the table? We do it all the time. We are not very formal here...we're family.

Do you use cloth napkins daily or go for the expendable paper ones? Have never, ever used cloth ones. Are you kidding washing and ironing those things?!? LOL We go with nice, elegant paper napkins on special occasions and paper towels on a regular basis.

So overall, how casual or formal do you get in serving and eating your daily meals? We are very casual here and we make it a habit to eat dinner together as a family EVERY single evening.

 

[Nicholas Mosher]

Stirblue - I'm not a chemist, but there are a few things I would try. Since you say the stain is fat/oil, it's not going to be water soluble (but hot water might melt it out and allow it to dissociate from the material). I just did a quick search on the net and found a couple possibilities. Placing another absorbant product on both sides of the stain and ironing (melting the oils and allowing them to soak into the other material), rubbing the stain with something absorbant like corn meal or baking soda and allowing it to sit overnight before washing it in hot water, or perhaps simply soaking/scrubbing manually in hot water (try placing it in a bowl and pouring boiling hot water over it). Sometimes using an oxidizer afterwords like bleach will help if there is an odor - but be careful, as oxidizers tend to strip colors as well. I've never really had big problems with stains - usually the bleach and agitation of the washer is enough for my napkins.

My napkins are simple white squares. I usually wash them on the large cycle with lots of bleach. When they comes out of the dryer I straghten them out and stack 'em... no ironing (I don't even own an iron... ).

 

[XeniA]

StirBlue, if you don't mind me chiming in here regarding those fish oil stains:

That it couldn't come out of the tie isn't surprising -- oil is tough and silk won't take much playing around. The two together are lethal, but take heart, you aren't the first person with a ruined silk tie!

As for your tablecloth: we get a huge number of oil stains all over everything it seems (oil is a very major ingredient over here), certainly lots of cooking splashes (my mother would be so humiliated to know that despite her good example, I seldom wear an apron!). However, most I can get out by putting a solution of Palmolive (or some other grease-busting liquid dishwashing detergent) and water right onto the spot and leaving it (at least overnight) to work before laundering. I make up a little solution of about two-thirds Palmolive with one-third water and keep it in a little hairdresser's needle-nose squeeze bottle right next to the sink. We use it often!

 

[Nicholas Mosher]

Yeah, thats a great idea too!

Come to think of it, thats actually what I do sometimes with my dishliquid when I'm scrubbing something in my sink.

 

[boufa06]

Nicholas Mosher: Can you please tell me how to get fish oil out of my table cloth?

We also have a lovely silk necktie back from the dry cleaners with fish oil still on it and a note saying it could not be removed.

Try wetting the stained area first before dusting it with talcum powder. Rub it in thoroughly and leave it overnight before washing it off. Hopefully this will work for you.

 

[treadles]

paper napkins..??????...

My mother used cloth, I use cloth, always have, but I live alone, and reuse the napkin for a few meals...then drop it into a convenient sac in closet, along with dirty tea towels etc. When the children were home I used cloth then also......

This is just another way of not wasting paper......

Also had cloth in my restaurant...lunch and dinner....

 

[Katie H]

My mother used cloth, I use cloth, always have, but I live alone, and reuse the napkin for a few meals...then drop it into a convenient sac in closet, along with dirty tea towels etc. When the children were home I used cloth then also......

This is just another way of not wasting paper......

Also had cloth in my restaurant...lunch and dinner....

I'm with you, treadles. Although my mother never used cloth napkins, even for special occasions. I've always used cloth. Did so when the 5 children were at home.

I use them because I like the feel of them when eating so it's not a wasting or not wasting thing for me. And, whoopee, my mother-in-law gave me 16 new napkins for Christmas.

 

[Barbara]

When I was growing up we had cloth napkins - used the same one for a week! Each of us had our own napking ring. Grosses me out to think of it now. I love cloth napkins and don't mind the laundry, however I will use paper when we have a particularly messy finger licking menu.
Barbara

 

[Claire]

We don't do it every day, but do have the works and do use it on a regular basis. Yes, we eat with corelle and paper a couple times a week. In between do regular glass and some cloth. But when we make a special dinner (at least a couple times a month), and when we throw dinner parties for less than 9, we go all the way. By the way, I hate ironing it all, and am considering having it professionally done. the ironing that is, for a tablecloth for 8.