Bamboo (or similiar) replacement for THIS type of paper towel.

[Conjuay]

I work in a food service location that uses "Wypall" X60 Paper towels by the TRUCKLOAD. They are excellent; but they are used in such a wasteful way, I cringe. When there is a spill, someone will grab a STACK of these towels an inch thick, clean the spill and toss the stack.

Even though our company owned laundry service supplies us with bag after bag of laundered cotton 'mass' towels, (hand towels) we are instructed to use the paper ones in the manner i just indicated. They seem to think it is more sanitary.

I was hoping someone here might have information regarding bamboo towels that are packaged and have similar characteristics to the wipealls.

I have looked online, and most sell rolls of towels, not quarter fold towels that are quite thick.
The other option I see are multi use bamboo 'rayon'(?) towels that would prohibitively expensive used the way our towels are used.

It takes twenty years to grow a tree, and four months to grow bamboo, it has to be a better solution.

Thanks if only to let me vent...

[OnlinePoker]

1. I used to use bamboo toilet paper until a plumber told me I should stop

He said it doesn't break down in the lines as quickly as regular toilet paper and he has seen major clogging issues as a result (and this was when I was having my pipes rooted for that very reason). I thought I was doing a good thing switching to bamboo, but in this case, not so much.

[Delphinus]

3. Oh,

that is good information to know. Living in a century+ old house, we don't need problems in the plumbing department.

[Pobeka]

2. You can't assume you get the same amount of fiber from bamboo as a tree.

First, the most obvious thing, is bamboo is hollow, a tree is not.

Second, a whole bunch of "fiber" coming from trees is the chips produced when "squaring up" a log in order to produce lumber.

Third, there are different densities of fiber per cubic meter of material in different species.

Fourth, all fiber is not equal, the length of the fibers is going to be different from species to species, and those fibers are going to have different structural properties, probably the most important may be stiffness. Paper/pulp mills have different requirements for raw materials in order to keep costs down given a desired final product.

Assuming you work in the continental USA, fast growing bamboo is usually a product of asia, and will have to be loaded on a boat spewing burnt bunker diesel to get it across the pacific.

There *are* temporate forests grown specifically for fiber production, and I won't claim to know how much of that is used versus residual chips from lumber production.

It is probably the case that one is better than the other in the bamboo vs trees for fiber use, but it isn't as easy as "one grows faster".

Hope that helps.