I hate to heap more doubt on an already crazy world, but paper towels say things like “strong” and “absorbent” and “more sheets”, but they don’t say anything about being clean or sterile. Yet we use them that way.
Anything that has less shit on it than my hands do is good enough for me.
They’re pretty clean so long as it’s indoors and ideally not in a bathroom. There’s a massive difference of a new paper towel and a reused towel. I wear contacts and it doesn’t take much to notice residue on my hands/eyelid area.
Clearly the only way to be sure is to wrap each sheet in plastic.
/fucking sarcasm
I can’t even with some people.
The industrial process of making paper is pretty sterile (Nobody checks and guarantees it, though).
People were licking door handles during covid lockdowns, and encouraging their kids in school to cough outside of their masks during classes, and you think anyone has any kind of understanding of the concept of sterility?
Also, things rarely need to be actually sterile in your daily life, they just need to not be contaminated. And if you need to put a paper towel on a cut for example, you can just put disinfectant on it first and that probably would be enough.
Well actually yes and no. Cheaper products are not the way to go when it comes to general health. Toilet paper ruins many things on your skin due to abrasive toxic chemicals.
That’s why I choose Clorox Scentiva Disinfectant Wipes, only $5.97 on Amazon
Because they’re white. White = clean is decades worth of marketing into every aspect of our day to say life. You see white cloth, white paper, white paint and you automatically think “clean”.
The paper rolls themselves are variably clean or sterile because each company has its own level of ethics enforcement.
How it’s Made show had an episode on them, if I’m remembering properly, and their production involves washing and cooking them at high temperature, so there is that initial sense of sterilization for the most part. However, what happens after can add a lot of bad stuff. From how often they maintain their equipment, whether the packaging itself is clean, delivery and storage until sale, there are a lot of chances something nasty can hitch a ride along the way. More so if the paper is scented and attracts rodents thinking they’re getting a nice meal.
And that’s just the kitchen paper. There’s also recycled paper which tends to use all kinds of nasty shit from wherever and the recycling process simply can’t completely sanitize.
Anyway, paper towels have the perception of seeming clean because they look clean, but they usually aren’t.
