Bamboo Towels vs Paper Towels: The Real Cost Per Clean-Up

Bamboo towels vs paper towels is easiest to settle with a payback sum. If your house gets through 2 paper towel rolls a week, one $12.99 Reusable Bamboo Towels roll pays for itself in under 3 weeks. A Bamboo clean-up costs less than 1 cent, against 5 to 10 cents for paper. The working is below, so you can check it against your own kitchen.

How we worked out the cost per clean-up

We used a $12.99 Bamboo roll with 20 sheets, and a $3 paper towel roll. NZ supermarket listings show a standard paper towel roll is 60 sheets (double-length rolls are 120, so we've stuck to standard). That makes paper 5 cents a sheet, and most clean-ups take one or two sheets, so 5 to 10 cents a clean-up.

Bamboo is $12.99 across 20 sheets, so about 65 cents a sheet. Each sheet gets used at least 85 times, because one sheet often does more than one job between washes. That puts Bamboo at about 0.76 cents a clean-up.

Reuse maths holds up beyond kitchens too. "100% of restaurants and institutional dining operations saved money by switching from single-use to reuse," according to Upstream Solutions, a nonprofit reuse research organisation, citing the Clean Water Fund's ReThink Disposable program.

Bamboo towels vs paper towels: the cost table

Cost	Reusable Bamboo Towels	Standard paper towel roll
Cost per roll	$12.99	$3
Sheets per roll	20	60
Cost per sheet	About 65c	5c
Uses per sheet	At least 85	1
Cost per use	About 0.76c	5c to 10c (1 to 2 sheets)
Clean-ups per roll	1,700 or more	30 to 60

The sweet spot: when does a Bamboo roll pay for itself?

Our assumptions, plainly: 1 sheet per clean-up, 2 paper rolls a week, a $3 paper roll, a $12.99 Bamboo roll, and 85 uses per sheet on average. Washing goes in your normal load, so we haven't added a laundry cost to the Bamboo side.

Two paper rolls a week at $3 is $6 a week, about $312 a year. The Bamboo roll is $12.99, and $12.99 divided by $6 is just over 2 weeks. It pays for itself in under 3 weeks.

Two paper rolls is 120 sheets, so about 120 uses a week. One Bamboo roll is 1,700 uses, which lasts about 14 weeks, or about 3 months. Over those 14 weeks paper costs about $84 against $12.99 for Bamboo, about $71 saved per Bamboo roll. Over a year you'd use about 4 Bamboo rolls (about $52) against $312 of paper. That's about $260 a year saved.

Cumulative cost	Paper towels	Reusable Bamboo Towels
Week 1	$6	$12.99
Week 3	$18	$12.99
Week 14	$84	$12.99
Week 52	$312	About $52

Use one paper roll a week and the payback is about 4.3 weeks. Use three and it's about 1.4 weeks.

Where the maths turns against Bamboo

One customer, Lena, put it plainly: "if they only last 5-6 washes (my guesstimate), they are still a substantially more expensive alternative to regular paper towels." She's right. At 6 uses a sheet, Bamboo is about 11 cents a clean-up, which is dearer than paper. The break-even is around 7 uses a sheet if you'd have used two sheets of paper, and 13 if you'd have used one.

Storage is the other cost. Gina found that "once torn off the roll there's no way to fit them back together... you need a storage solution for all the individual cloths once they come off the roll." A jar or a bag on the bench does it, and how you wash and care for the sheets affects how many uses you get.

What Stine says about defending the price

"People see $12.99 next to a $3 roll and wince, and I get it. So here's the sum. If you get through two paper rolls a week, that's $6 a week. The Bamboo roll has paid for itself inside three weeks, and then it keeps going for about three months. If you know you'll never wash and reuse them, paper's the better buy." - Stine, co-founder of Good Change

Common Questions

Are bamboo towels cheaper than paper towels?

Per use, yes. A $12.99 Bamboo roll works out at about 0.76 cents a clean-up, against 5 to 10 cents for a $3 paper roll. At 2 paper rolls a week that's about $260 a year saved.

How long does it take a bamboo roll to pay for itself?

Under 3 weeks if you use 2 paper rolls a week. That's $6 a week on paper against a $12.99 Bamboo roll, so just over 2 weeks. At 1 roll a week it's about 4.3 weeks.

How many paper towel rolls does one bamboo roll replace?

One Bamboo roll gives you at least 1,700 uses. At one sheet per clean-up that's about 28 standard 60-sheet paper rolls, roughly $84.

How many times can you reuse a bamboo paper towel?

At least 85 uses a sheet on average, because a sheet often does more than one job between washes. Some households get fewer, and below about 7 to 13 uses a sheet, paper works out cheaper.

Do bamboo towels clean as well as paper towels?

For spills and bench wipe-downs, yes. A few customers keep a paper towel or two for very greasy pans, and that's a fair call.

What we do know about you: you've made it to the end of our blog (thank you). You're looking for a way forward, and for ways to improve on your old habits. This is one easy way to get started.

This month's Bamboo offer: buy 2 rolls and get a third free, or buy 5 and get a 6th roll free plus a free coloured Eco Cloth 2-pack. Shop Reusable Bamboo Towels.