How to Save 50 A Year on Paper Towels and Save More Forests
When I was a Teen I would use the old trick of making 49 trips to find gold out west! Even so I used paper towels for years to clean shelfs like in the kitchen. At first I would try cleaning off the shelf with going over the realm with just the paper towel using up a lot. Then I realized it's much more efficient to clean in steps, sort all the large stuff by grouping all the like stuff by like type and in small batches on the edge of the shelf aimed to remember where they go, jugs are much tougher to clean off the table with paper towels! Each item I aimed to the shelf, ect. Step 2 was to brush all the stuff off to dry clean more exactly and in step 3 I would spray on the surface like with water, soak it a while clean with the paper towel and repeat, then fine tune in Step 4 with a bit of baking soda on the paper towel up close for beauty and sharpness. Then I realized in Step 3 after each spray of water (the universal solvent) can be improved by using a small deck mop for a much faster cleanup after the soak. A problem with the deck mop was that it wasn't washable and so on. To improve this I tried the ruse of storing them in my refridgerator, I couldn't store them in the freezer because they would be solid ice, so I compromised with this partial cleaning solution. You read where they say it's of worth to store your brushes in the freezer in a zip loc no doubt, even so I finally found a better way to save on the paper towels and for the rest of our life;
A Squeegee, Gee!...
First I sort the shelves by the above motif, dry clean the shelf with the squeege to move the stuff into a dustpan off the side and then spray and use the squeegee again to cleanse the shelf the moist, and repeat the spray and squeege motif till finished and then go over the shelf with just a bit of paper towel and baking soda by the usual method to find tune. Squeegees are cheap and much better to clean windows too Click Here, in double duty. My squeegee just cost two at Big Lots and won't wear out. To clean around edges after you sort the stuff, where a wide squeege may not reach, you may want to use something like a smaller spackling knife or a small squeegee. It has a much reduced surface area compared to a brush, and if you store the squeegee in the icebox it's much safer to use, in ten years you'll save 500 or more and your branch of the S & L will hug you!
This method is good for higher speed use on flat surfaces, for other surfaces where you either reach deep or round, first sort and dryclean as above, then use of a brush with poly bristles, and then spray to soak and cleanse and so on may be best. While less clean than a squegee, the bristles are easier to clean than a mop because stuff you clean slides off with water and won't stick to the brush.
