The Best Plastic-Free Alternative to Microfiber Cloths

The best plastic-free alternative to microfiber cloths for kitchen cleaning is a reusable bamboo towel or a cellulose eco cloth. Both wipe up spills, grease and everyday mess as well as synthetic microfiber, they last for months, and they do not shed plastic into your sink every time you rinse them. If you have been after a microfiber cloth alternative that actually performs, this is it.

What a microfiber cloth is actually made of

A microfiber cloth is plastic. It is usually a blend of polyester and polyamide, both petroleum based, spun into fibres finer than a human hair. Those fine fibres are what make it grippy, and they are also what break loose in the wash and slip through wastewater filters.

Researchers Tong Hu, Maocai Shen and Wangwang Tang, writing in Environmental Science and Pollution Research in 2021, put the scale of synthetic textile shedding plainly:

"Weathered wipes or masks can release billions of microplastic fibers, which is a great challenge to the local ecological security."

Cleaning cloths sit in the same family. The International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that synthetic textiles account for about 35 percent of the primary microplastics entering the world's oceans.

What makes a good microfiber cloth alternative

A replacement has to earn its place on performance first. Two options do.

A reusable bamboo towel has the shape of a paper towel and the strength of a cloth. One sheet handles a bench wipe, a spill or a greasy pan, rinses clean, and goes back to work. Each sheet takes around 85 washes before it gives up, so one roll of 20 replaces a long run of both paper towels and cloths.

A cellulose eco cloth, the Swedish dishcloth style, is made from wood pulp and cotton. It is stiff and dry on the shelf, then turns soft and very absorbent the moment it hits water. When we ran our own side by side, the thing that stood out was not scrubbing power, it was how much liquid it holds. It does not behave like a normal cloth, and nothing we tested, microfiber included, came close. After six to nine months of daily use it goes in the compost. If you are switching the whole kitchen over, the eco cloth value pack works out cheapest per cloth.

One thing worth knowing about the eco cloth: it is built for a daily dishwasher cycle, not the washing machine. An occasional machine wash is fine, but the dishwasher is the everyday reset it is designed around.

Bamboo towel vs cellulose eco cloth vs microfiber

Feature	Cellulose eco cloth	Reusable bamboo towel	Synthetic microfiber cloth
Material	Wood pulp and cotton, plant based	Bamboo and cotton pulp, plant based	Polyester and polyamide, plastic
Absorbency	Very high, soaks a spill in one pass	High, holds water like a towel	Good, better on fine dust than liquid
Lint and streaking	Low lint, can streak glass if used too wet	Low lint once washed a few times	Very low lint, strong on glass
Lifespan	6 to 9 months, then compostable	About 85 washes per sheet, 20 per roll	1 to 3 years, then landfill
Price	About $3.70 a cloth in a 3 pack	$12.99 a roll of 20 reusable sheets	$2 to $4 a cloth in multipacks

Microfiber still wins one job outright: a dry cloth on a mirror. Here is how Stine gets the same finish without it, further down.

What Stine at Good Change says

The pushback on switching is almost always the same line: "I can clean with just microfiber and water, I do not need products at all." Her answer:

"It is not entirely true. Water on its own just moves the oil around. Spray a little natural cleaner on, leave it a few seconds, and it lifts and breaks down the oil so it comes off instead of smearing. Microfiber and blue chux are plastic and they leave particles behind. The eco cloth is more absorbent than anything else on the market, and natural fibre behaves differently to synthetic, like wearing cotton instead of polyester. One breathes, one traps. You cannot feel that in a cloth, but the principle holds. It is not a gimmick. It is built to work better. Even if you do not care about the plastic, care about the thing that cleans better." - Stine, co-founder of Good Change

Common questions

What can I use instead of a microfiber cloth?

A reusable bamboo towel or a cellulose eco cloth covers almost everything a microfiber cloth does: bench wipes, spills, dishes, glass and general kitchen cleaning. Both are plant based, both last for months, and neither sheds plastic in the wash.

Do microfiber cloths actually shed microplastics?

Yes. Microfiber is made from polyester and polyamide, and washing releases loose plastic fibres too small for wastewater systems to catch. The IUCN links synthetic textiles to roughly a third of the primary microplastic pollution in the oceans.

Are bamboo or cotton cloths as absorbent as microfiber?

For liquid, they are more absorbent. In our own testing a cellulose eco cloth held more than anything else on the shelf and cleared a spill in one pass. Microfiber is better at trapping fine dry dust, which is why some people keep one dusting cloth and switch everything else.

What's the best microfiber alternative for glass and mirrors?

A bamboo wipe that has been through the wash a few times, so the last of the lint is gone, does a genuinely good job on glass. Then the trick: take a dry eco cloth, which goes stiff as cardboard when dry, and buff. It lifts the streaks and the spots you only notice when the sun comes through the window.

Do Swedish dishcloths work as well as microfiber?

For kitchen jobs, yes, and often better. A Swedish dishcloth is more absorbent, dries hard between uses so it stays fresh, and composts at the end. Keep it going with a daily dishwasher cycle rather than the washing machine. It is less suited to buffing glass, where a dry cloth of any kind does the job.

References

[1] Hu, T., Shen, M., & Tang, W. (2021). Wet wipes and disposable surgical masks are becoming new sources of fiber microplastic pollution during global COVID-19. Environmental Science and Pollution Research International, 28(1), 284-292.

[2] Boucher, J., & Friot, D. (2017). Primary Microplastics in the Oceans: A Global Evaluation of Sources. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).