Which is the less environmentally-friendly option when house-cleaning, throwing away paper towels or washing and drying rags?

Paper towels generally use little or no recycled material, can't be recycled, and most brands use a chlorine process and tremendous quantities of water in the pulp phase of production.
If you use washable rags, yes, you're using water and the natural resources involved in running the appliances but far less of these things than is involved in the production of a roll of towels. Rags used for heavy cleaning don't need to be bleached- a "Bright white" is just not that important.
Two exceptions are "Seventh Generation" and "Earth Friendly" paper products, both using "Greener" production methods and recycled material. You can usually find these at health food stores and co-ops.

There may always be a bit more room to throw your rags in with some of your other laundry. If you then hang them up to dry then you won't be using any additional energy to launder them.

Neither. I find that using rags saves sending old clothes, threadbare sheets, exhausted dish towels, etc. directly to landfill without exacting one last favor from them. So I tear them into useful sized pieces and dust or clean with them, then toss. This tearing up is a job you can do while watching television.

Granted I might wash tired items one last time before making the decision 'discard or give to charity shop'; that's so I can assess whether someone might want something I'm tired of. But that's it. I don't wash old dustrags.

But I haven't figured out what to do with the buttons and zippers I cut off! In the 'good old days' I sewed quite a bit, but I don't any more! So I've got a humongous button collection!

Don't tell me to throw them away! I can''t!

Old clothes/ sheets/ rags/ towels can be donated to battered women’s shelters, and to animal shelters. If they’re clean, these places will often take anything. They might even take buttons! I knew a girl in high school who collected buttons. If I knew where she was now, I’d tell you to send them all to her!

Paper towels (dry or damp, not those with cleaning products on them) are compostable, I believe. So there’s that option. I wonder if eco-friendly cleaning products are environmentally friendly enough for the compost heap?

I really should switch to rags, shouldn’t I? That’s the greener option?
Looks like I need a clothesline.

quote:

I wonder if eco-friendly cleaning products are environmentally friendly enough for the compost heap?

Depends on the product... Simple Green, for example, is fine for the heap, but products with citrus oils or baking soda as major componants should not be composted... they screw up the biocycle and kill off beneficial bugs and worms

Really? Simple Green is okay? Wow. Awesome! Who knew? (obviously not me). Thanks!

I use both, depending on what I am doing.

For windows, mirrors I use paper - if I do not have newsprint then I use paper towels. Plastics, like the Computer, TV, etc I use old t-shirt material, nice and soft and does not leave behind lint.

We do go through paper towels, I have to clean up after an animal and a dog all the time, both to one degree or another drag in "stuff" that is indeterminable of what it exactly is. I err on the side of caution and use PT for wiping up those.

My two favorite cleaning products, vinegar and baking soda are basically inert and biodegradable, the paper towels and newspaper are as well. Most (not all) of the paper used around here is either shredded and dumped in the Compost pile or is used as a mulch layer beneath mulch.

We send very little to landfill.