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.
We never assumed that. Also why would they need to be sterile in the first place? There main job is to get dirty.
Anything that has less shit on it than my hands do is good enough for me.
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.
The paper rolls themselves are variably clean or sterile
No consumer-grade paper towel/kitchen roll is going to be sterile even in the wide “medical” sense, that’s basically a statistical impossibility. No factory is going to spend a shitton of extra money to have clean-room equipment and practices, and that means people will sneeze on it at some stage of the packaging process.
Impossibility is incorrect. Improbability is the better word.
The industrial process of making paper is pretty sterile (Nobody checks and guarantees it, though).
do they? do they assume normal towels are sterile?
Is anyone assuming they’re sterile (aseptic) tho? I would hope nobody is using paper towels for anything important in a medical context. In other cases their sterility is not important at all, interacting with microbes (includiing pathogenic ones) is a normal part of everyday life and our immune systems are pretty good at dealing with them (unless you are exposed to something particularly nasty, like during a pandemic). Unless you go full-on germaphobe, the microbial contamination that exists on new paper towels is nothing compared to other stuff you interact with (smartphone, door handles, kitchen sponge, fresh produce, etc).
Otherwise, they’re self-evidently cleaner than whatever I’m trying to clean with them, that’s why they work for cleaning in the first place. If I swipe a kitchen counter with them after cooking, it will very obviously have less gunk and shmutz now, which means it will be cleaner.
What kind of nincompoop assumes paper towels are sterile?
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.
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
Hahaha, I think someone didn’t get your humor
Think about how long that paper has been sealed up in the plastic wrap. Germs and bacteria can survive for a limited amount of time. I submit anything on the paper towel is dead.
That’s a bad assumption to make. Many pathogenic bacteria can survive for months with no meal.
It’s more that interacting with bacteria, even pathogenic bacteria, is a normal part of everyday life. That’s exactly what our immune systems are for. Unless you are sticking the paper inside you or doing surgery with it, you’ll be fine using a paper towel with some microbes on it.
Might the bleaching and reconstituting-process of paper fibres play a role? And then, common industry standards and checks?
(not saying you’re wrong)
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.
No sir i would argue even those idiots knew in fact what they were doing was stupid. However have you taken a second to reflect on how utterly owned you are? Jesus fuck. So owned. Fucking libtard.
You seem nice
I’m losing IQ just by reading your comment.
If I’m bleeding any more than a drop or two of blood, I’m reaching for the closest remotely clean and absorbent material while I go find a real bandage and some neosporin. 99% of the time that is a paper towel since they’re always around and handy. Never got an infection that way, and I think it’s a perfectly reasonable reaction when you or someone else is bleeding…
Edit: and to be clear I don’t think paper towels are sterile, but neither is the air that I’m running through to go get a bandage; might as well not get blood everywhere while I’m at it.
Unless it’s been autoclaved or packaged in a “clean room” I don’t assume anything’s sterile . I would say that mass produced paper products like that are closer to sanitary.
