How to Choose Sustainable Dish Towels

When shopping for dish towels, we recommend choosing those made out of organic cotton or linen. If those materials are not an option, conventional cotton is better than microfiber. For organic dish towels, we love the GOTS certification. For linen and conventional cotton, the OEKO-TEX and Fair Trade certifications will indicate that the product was made with people and the planet in mind. 

Materials

Cotton

Cotton is the most widely used natural fiber on the planet. Unfortunately, it is a water intensive crop that takes a significant toll on the soil and is associated with deforestation. Cotton is also particularly vulnerable to pests and other insects, which has led to a flourishing agrochemical industry around its cultivation. Almost 5% of global pesticide sales and 10% of global insecticides sales come from the cotton industry. Luckily, some cotton is grown in ways that can be kinder to our planet (see organic cotton below). In general, a plant-based material like cotton requires less energy to manufacture than a petroleum-based alternative like microfiber. 

Organic Cotton

Organic cotton is grown without relying on the use of harmful chemicals, leaving the soil, air, and water with fewer contaminants. In an LCA looking at the differences between organic cotton and conventional cotton, the Textile Exchange found that organic cotton produces 46% fewer greenhouse gas emissions, creates 70% less acidification of land and water, the potential for soil erosion drops 26%, surface and groundwater use falls anywhere from 48% to 91%, and the demand for energy can drop by as much as 62%. While we think towels made with organic cotton are the best option, we recognize that they’re harder to come by. Less than 1% of all cotton produced is organic.

Linen

Linen is one of our favorite materials. It gets softer over time, and though it is usually more expensive than cotton, it tends to last longer. It’s made from the fast-growing plant flax, which is primarily grown in boreal forests that are not associated with deforestation. Plus, linen uses far less water over its life cycle than cotton. While pesticides are hardly used in flax cultivation, it’s better to get linen dish towels that are certified organic by the Global Organic Textile Standard. 

Bamboo

Bamboo is a fast-growing resource that stores four times more carbon dioxide and releases 35% more oxygen than the average tree. This means that bamboo is able to fight climate change more efficiently than most trees by removing greenhouse gas pollution from the atmosphere at a faster pace. Not bad! Unfortunately, not all bamboo production is as beneficial. Creating bamboo viscose involves a chemical-intensive manufacturing process through which workers are exposed to waste, including carbon disulfide, which is linked to neurological problems. Even though we prefer it in paper products, bamboo just doesn’t do it for us as much when it comes to dish towels. 

Microfiber

Microfiber is a textile made from ultrafine (hence ‘micro’) synthetic yarns, namely polyester and nylon. Since each fiber is many times smaller than a human hair, it can get into every crack and crevice that cotton towels can’t reach. As a result, it’s become a popular textile for towels due to its high absorbency - microfiber can absorb 7-8 times its weight in liquid. While this is quite the feat, we have a couple of bones to pick with microfiber… First, it’s derived from fossil fuels. Extracting petroleum (which is needed to produce polyester) involves drilling and fracking, which have a host of negative environmental consequences (*cough*, oil spills, *cough*) that are not infrequent and can devastate already fragile wildlife populations. The environmental effects of drilling overwhelmingly impact people of color and low-income folks, who are more likely to live in communities near these sites. 

If that wasn’t bad enough, the chemical treatments used by polyester manufacturers are toxic and known to cause neurological damage and even cancer at high levels of exposure, putting factory workers at risk. Plus, every time polyester gets washed, it sheds tiny pieces of plastic threads that enter our waterways and devastate marine ecosystems or even find their way into our bodies. The Plastic Soup Foundation estimates that up to 35% of plastic polluting in our oceans comes from microfibers shed by synthetic fabrics. We’ll pass!

Washing

One of the highest areas of environmental impact in the lifecycle of a dish towel comes from its use phase. In fact, the emissions associated with the use of a dish towel can vary from as low as 1.14 grams of CO2e per use to as high as about 242 grams of CO2e per use. There’s such a large discrepancy here because a dish towel’s impact varies based on the type of detergent used, the number of uses per laundry cycle, the number of items washed per laundry cycle, and the type of washer and dryer used to launder the dish towels. Of that list, the biggest variations come from the number of times between washes and the number of items per wash. 

Did you know that when you wash 12 dish towels per load (which is roughly about half a load of laundry) instead of one dish towel per load, the carbon footprint per load decreases by about 92%? Holy guacamole stain! When you increase the load size to 24 dish towels (a full load of laundry) from 12 dish towels, we drop another 50% or so. Pretty awesome, huh? On the flip side, when you decrease the number of dish towels in a load of laundry from 24 towels (full load) to 1 towel, the increase in the carbon footprint is a whopping 2274%. The impact can also vary significantly based on how many times you use a dish towel before you throw it in the laundry. Using a towel ten times instead of only six times before washing decreases the associated carbon dioxide emitted per use by about 40%.

Fun Fact

Dish towels are one of the few things we’d recommend tackling as your next DIY project. Old t-shirts, bath towels, and socks make incredible kitchen towels, and you might be surprised to hear that old yoga pants make delightful dish towels too since they’re super-absorbent.

Certifications

Here are some certifications to look for when shopping this category.

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