Happy Friday — we’re back with more Hot Bones.

A few weeks ago, I asked everyone what they thought about the idea of helping support Shenandoah National Park by referring people to this newsletter. The basic math was that money otherwise spent acquiring new subscribers could be spent on donations instead, as long as current HB readers could help with the referrals.

100% of the poll responses to the idea were positive, which gives me hope that we’re on to something. So if you’re ready to help support places like Old Rag, Big Meadows, and Skyline Drive, send this link to your friends and fam.

Every new reader = $2 to the Shenandoah National Park Trust.

Again, this link.

Do one long thumb scroll for more Cville-specific updates like local events, cool houses, and pets to adopt.

🐶 Speaking of: Peyton! This girlie is a calm soul and enjoys the slow life. Looking deeply into her big eyes is a new form of meditation (lab mix, 30 lbs, 4 years old).

I have a confession to make. This is a sustainability newsletter, written every week in the hopes that we’ll find better ways to help our planet. And yet … I’m addicted to paper towels. I love them so much.

And not just the flimsy generic ones. I’m talking about wads of the Brawny three-ply stuff, the ones wrapped in ballgowns of plastic, in packs so big you have to make a separate trip back to the car after the regular groceries to carry them all inside.

Every week in this newsletter, while I’m extolling the virtues of energy-efficient heat pumps, the benefits of water-saving native plants, and the merits of reusing dryer lint and pasta jars, I’m doing so while also consuming hundreds of paper towels.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all sooner, but I regret nothing.

You see, a germaphobe’s zen garden is a thorough hand scrub with an immaculate paper towel waiting in the wings. A germaphobe’s nightmare is a quick rinse with a damp dish towel looming in the background, one that’s likely hung on an oven handle that grazes the ground every time someone’s cooking. To me, the paper towel preserves the cleanliness with the satisfaction of a rake through sand. And on the flip side, when you use a paper towel to wipe up a mess, it removes the dirtiness entirely. All that crud goes right in the trash, never to be seen again. The decontamination is complete.

So yes, I am a paper towel princess, but this is the story of my redemption.

As much as I love using paper towels, I’ve been feeling a little too guilty recently to keep up the habit. Maybe it’s the nice spring weather bringing me back from the brink of the Big Paper abyss, or maybe it was when I recently stumbled on this stat: Using two rolls of paper towels every week for a year is like straight-up burning 11 gallons of gasoline. And that’s not even accounting for the trees cut up for each roll, that’s just an emissions stat.

Regardless of the root cause, this past week I started my hero’s journey by forgoing Bounty in the paper towel aisle and opting for the sustainable versions instead. And in next week’s edition, I’ll ditch the nicotine gum entirely and start using Swedish dish cloths and a bunch of ungainly wet rags for all my kitchen cleaning needs.

By the time I’m done, I’ll have torn my hair out, cursed the Seventh Generation gods, and found a new level of peace with bamboo. Here we go.

It’s been a while since we did a Hot Bones product comparison, and boy do we need some hot takes when it comes to sustainable paper towels. In a sea of three-ply tuna, there are only a few sustainable paper towel minnows, and honestly, I’m not super impressed.

The thing about new, sustainable products that stick around are that they’re 1) cheaper than the traditional version 2) healthier for you in some way and 3) they offer better performance. It’s a hard obstacle course to make it through, but ask Jeni’s dairy-free Texas sheet cake ice cream, Nuuly’s clothing rental options, or Ego’s electric lawn mowers, and they’ll tell you it’s possible.

Sustainable paper towels are, broadly speaking, not there yet. To me, there are still too many tradeoffs for mass adoption. But if you’re addicted to mainstream paper towels and need a way to wean yourself off, they’ll do just fine. Or if you’re at the grocery store staring down an army of Brawny lumberjacks, you may wish to pick one of these up instead.

So please meet today’s contestants:

Seventh Generation unbleached paper towels

Caboo tree-free paper towels

Reel bamboo paper towels

💰 Price: $3.69 for one roll at Whole Foods

👑 Paper towel princess rating: 1 out of 5 rhinestones

🔥 Saucy commentary: I’m a big fan of Seventh Gen (they’re a B Corp that prioritizes people and the planet, not just profit, plus they make great cleaning wipes), but my god, these paper towels aren’t doing anyone any favors. It’s like drying your hands with seaweed.

Doubling up on sheets just to get things dry means that you’re using a roll twice as fast. I’m embarrassed to tell you how long a Brawny three-ply roll lasts in my kitchen given my consumption rate, but I’ll tell you that the Seventh Gen roll lasted less than 36 hours.

🧻 Issue with Tissue rating: Every year, the Natural Resources Defense Council puts out a sustainability scorecard on the leading toilet paper and paper towel brands, taking into account things like recycled content, Forest Stewardship Council certification, and bleaching processes. The paper towel version I used for this experiment wasn’t included, but Seventh Generation’s extra soft and strong version got an A (the only thing higher is an A+), so I’m going to assume the unbleached ones I was using were even better.

Using recycled paper, especially “post-consumer content” (the paper we’ve already used and thrown away, but which has been diverted from landfills) is the key to Seventh Gen’s high paper towel rating here.

👍 Bottom line: Good for the planet and good in a pinch, but expect to find remnants on the underside of your wrists from time to time.

💰 Price: $4.99 for two rolls at Wegmans

👑 Paper towel princess rating: 2.5 out of 5 rhinestones

🔥 Saucy commentary: “This is too thin” — my mom, when I brought a roll over when I visited for dinner. On the other hand, big kudos to my dad for being able to use a single one of these thin sheets to move all the crumbs from the left side of the countertop all the way to the right side of the countertop when cleaning after dinner. A perfect illustration that every great marriage is a balance of opposites.

🧻 Issue with Tissue rating: B (400 out of 600 points). Caboo is made from bamboo rather than virgin or recycled tree fiber, and the brand is Millennial clickbait: minimalist branding, educational feel good blurbs, and a thoughtful amount of butt puns (they also make toilet paper). The packaging is also plastic-free, which is a nice change of pace.

👍 Bottom line: Pretty good, but I have to agree with my mom. It’s not as absorbent as I’d like. We went through this roll pretty quickly too.

Bamboo toilet paper and paper towels were a big thing a few years ago, and the hype has definitely died down. That’s because while bamboo products are better than your run of the mill virgin tree fiber, they’re not the silver bullet we were all hoping for.

As anyone whose neighbors have bamboo in their yard knows, bamboo grows super fast and often beyond borders. That means it can be harvested more often on less land, which is great news. But new studies also show that the energy it takes to turn bamboo into paper towels (and tp) and the emissions from transporting it from places like China (where about a third of the world’s bamboo is grown) can negate the environmental and land use benefits.

Using paper towels made from recycled fiber is usually a bit better in terms of a reduced pollution footprint, according to the NRDC. Still, bamboo is better than Brawny, so just check for the FSC certification logo to get the all-clear that deforestation and forest degradation weren’t in the mix when these paper towels were created.

💰 Price: $15.99 for a pack of 6 at Harris Teeter (roughly $2.60 a pop)

👑 Paper towel princess rating: 5 out of 5 rhinestones

🔥 Saucy commentary: Nothing saucy here. I couldn’t tell these weren’t Brawny. Or as my wife put it: “You just like them because it’s basically the same.” Yes. Now bring me back my Marlboros.

🧻 Issue with Tissue rating: B. This is the same as what Caboo got, so this is a little awkward. The difference as far as I can make out is that Reel is just putting more product into each sheet, which is probably worse for their bottom line but better for my hand drying.

👍 Speaking of the bottom line: The brand is also B Corp certified and the rolls are, again, plastic free. Checking a lot of good boxes here, Reel.

I cry a little bit when I realize I can’t throw away that cloth towel after I wipe the gunk from my kitchen sink. More soon!

Frannie gets ready for her own Easter egg hunt.

This new tool shows you how much your utility provider keeps in profit off your electricity bill.

The national median is 13.5% as of 2024. At our house, about 18% of our bill goes to Dominion’s net income.

Check out your situation here.

Or really get into the weeds with this Volts episode: Are utilities making too much money?

Every new Hot Bones reader = $2 to the Shenandoah National Park Trust.

Send your friends and family here.

🍅 Meal of the week: Ramen night is back for round two at Ethos. Eight bucks gets you ramen with house-made broth, scallions, cilantro, bok choy, and a marinated egg. This Friday until 9:30 pm.

🌿 These book up fast: The Cville Tool Library is hosting a Scythe 101 workshop. I’m a big fan of self-propelled electric mowers myself, but a well-maintained scythe can actually mow a conventional lawn faster and handle more varied material – all without requiring any fossil fuels or even electricity to operate (Sunday, May 3 at 1 pm).

🏠 Historic house of the week: Yet another Belmont bungalow hits the market. This one comes with a charming garden, original glass handle doorknobs, and a fully renovated kitchen and bathroom (2 beds, 1 bath, $497k).

🏡 Cool rental of the week: Perfectly situated craftsman in Fry Spring with a huge covered deck and fully fenced yard (3 bed, 4 bath, $3,000/month including utilities).

🛍️ Deals deals deals: Get 20% off your next purchase at Refill Renew and the Scrappy Elephant (Cville’s creative reuse center) this April. No code needed.

💼 Job of the week: Senior Manager and Lead, Campaign for People, Nature and Climate at the World Resources Institute (hybrid in DC, $140k - $155k, and your first order of business once you land the job should be shortening that title).

💾 Remote job: Writer and Associate Producer at Climate Central ($72k - $75k).

➡ Quick reminder that next week’s Green Drinks happy hour will feature me and Hot Bones, so come join us to help shape the future of climate coverage in our city (Wednesday, April 8, 5:30 - 7 pm).

➡ And most importantly, I’m delighted to share that southbound JPA is back open.

Have an event or rec you’d like to share? Hiring? Interested in advertising? Share any and all info here.