The Debate Continues… Paper Or Cloth Dinner Napkins
October 8, 2008 – 12:01 pmMy household has been hotly debating the question of paper versus cloth for quite some time now. It may seem like a silly concern to the ordinary citizen, but when it comes to dinner napkins, I have an emotional attachment. When I was growing up, we used cloth dinner napkins. The napkins didn’t always match, which made them more endearing in my book, but they were always folded next to our plate and made dinnertime a sort of treasure hunt. It was fun to see which napkin you would get, and we each had our favorites.
Now, the debate is about money. My husband thinks it’s more economical to use paper napkins because you don’t spend money washing them. I say that if you’re going to use that logic, why not get rid of kitchen and bath towels, too? Since I’m washing towels anyway, why not just throw the cloth dinner napkins in with the load? Keeping in mind that my cloth napkins have a sentimental attachment, I still think that they are, economically speaking, a better choice.
If you are using paper, your debate will be better served if you compare using paper towels to using actual paper dinner napkins. You would think that the paper dinner napkin would be more expensive, given they are a specialty item, intended for one use only. Whereas, paper towels are multi-purpose items. Not so! Compare a roll of paper towels costing about $3.00 for 125 sheets. For a family of four, that roll will last roughly one month. That’s around $36.00 a year in dinnertime face mopping. Now consider the elite paper dinner napkin. At about $5.00 for 400 napkins, the same family will spend roughly $17.00 a year to clean their pretty little faces at meal time. Case closed.
Whether you choose paper over cloth, or paper towels over paper dinner napkins, it seems to me that it comes down to preferences. The cost difference probably isn’t enough to sway any voter from their preferred napkin. But this is one person who will vote with my heart. Nostalgia wins every time!