Green Daily

You've gotten rid of your plastic food storage containers and you always carry reusable shopping bags with you. But somehow, you just haven't been able to part with the roll of paper towels that lives on your kitchen counter. There's something so liberating about being able to wipe up a spill or drain some bacon and then be able to just throw that mess away. However, you know in your heart that it isn't particularly green and so you're considering giving up the paper towel habit. Lucky for you, those stacks of used newspaper that you put out for recycling each week can be used in the kitchen before sending it to the great recycling plant in the sky.

When you bake cookies, open up a clean page of newspaper. Use that as your cookie cooling rack, it will soak up any grease markers and I've never noticed a problem with ink transfer. The same trick works for blotting freshly cooked bacon, that newspaper will soak up the fat with ease and when you're all done, the original fold marks make it easy to roll away.

Lastly, as many of us know (I learned from my grandma Bunny) that newspaper works better than paper towels when it comes to cleaning glass. It doesn't leave streaks or lint spots behind and if you use a vinegar and water mixture instead chemical cleaners, you can feel downright virtuous about your doing your chores.