Sustainable Switch: LastTissue
Today, I thought I would share a sustainable switch that I’ve recently made in our house. I’ve been working on making switches for years. But I find that, like everything else, making small changes over time is the way to go. Baby steps. Because if you don’t, it can feel totally overwhelming. I know that when I first started trying to be more sustainable, it felt like I had been doing everything wrong and I wanted to fix it all immediately. But that’s just not sustainable for me. So I backed that train up and started with a few things, and then added on a few more.
One thing I have been really hesitant to make the switch on was tissues. You see, handkerchiefs really grossed me out. The idea of having a big wet piece of fabric in your pocket or purse all day that you continuously blow on seemed really germy to me. Not to mention unpleasant, because what if you accidentally wipe with the wet part again? No thanks. I was also grossed out about putting all that snot to soak in my laundry. Just imagining it in there marinating with my clothes bothered me.
After we started composting food waste (another switch to talk about another day), my husband commented that most of our trash was now largely tissues. And it was true. This started to weigh on my conscience, so I went to the internet for answers. I dismissed a traditional hanky pretty quickly for the reasons stated above. I found the HankyBook, which intrigued me. But it was when I came across LastTissue that I finally found an option that I felt comfortable about.
I first saw the little travel packs, which I thought were a great idea. There are six small tissue/hankies in a silicone box, and it comes with a silicone divider that keeps the used tissues from the clean ones. I liked that built-in separation, and I also really liked that I could run the silicone box and divider through the dishwasher to disinfect it.
Then I discovered the box - and that I thought was a game changer. The same idea - you get multiple tissues (18) - and it comes in a silicone box. But I LOVE the way it looks like traditional tissues and that the tissues pop out the same way. I think that often people have difficulty switching to something more sustainable when it feels miles off from what they’ve been used to. This doesn’t have the problem. I also loved that the storage for the used tissues is in the bottom of the box - no need for an additional basket or bin to put dirty ones in. Definitely a plus for a minimalist.
I started with just one box and one travel pack to try them out. I kept the travel pack in my purse and we used the big box in our primary bathroom. Everyone adapted quickly. My cleaning routine included putting a small amount of water and detergent in a little tub I keep for handwashing, and soaking all of the tissues for 30 minutes before putting them in the wash along with the towels. This let me drain out some of the grossness that worried me, and keeps them much brighter and whiter. I have tried it without the soak, because I realize that pre-soaking is using additional water and is not ideal, but they did not clean up as well. I do make sure that I use the minimum amount of water to cover them though, and feel like that’s a good compromise. We’ve since expanded to a box for each bathroom, and a travel one for each one of us.
My daughter was sold on the boxes after she got a cold. Usually, she brings a box of tissues and a trash can with her everywhere she goes when she has a runny nose. With these, she just carried around one box, because the “trash can” was included! It actually made it much nicer for all of us because I wasn’t tripping over a trash can in an unexpected place.
That being said, when all 3 of us had a cold at the same time, I was doing a lot of laundry - every other day at the very least. I was also sometimes borrowing tissues from one box to add to the other to cover our more high-traffic areas. This wasn’t such a big deal, because I wanted to be washing stuff more frequently while we were ill. And you bet I ran all of the boxes through the dishwasher once we were better.
All in all, the most time consuming part is doing the special tissue folding so they pop out of the box in a pleasing way. I don’t bother with the travel pack (those I just ball up and stuff in), but I do for the boxes. Since we also have multiple boxes, I also try to count tissues to keep them with roughly the same number they came with (yes, that is probably overkill). But it starts to go pretty quickly once you get it built into your routine.
Like everything else, I think a lot of these switches depend on what season of life you are in. There are definitely times in my life where I would not have wanted to dedicate a couple of extra minutes of my time to folding tissues every time I washed towels. But at the moment, these are working super well for us and I am really happy with the switch. I highly recommend these as an option for those who are traditional hanky-avoidant!