Paper towels or cloth? One is much safer when it comes to wiping away COVID-19

Americans have been cleaning incessantly since it was discovered COVID-19 can live up to three days on some surfaces.

That means paper towels are harder to find than ever before, particularly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested paper was better than cloth towels for decontaminating surfaces.

A tip many shoppers are just now learning is that you can buy paper towels directly from manufacturers if stores and online retailers are out of stock.

Sparkle, Brawny and Viva all offer their products directly to consumers, though some of them also show paper towels are out of stock due to the pandemic. Brawny products cost as much as $3 more on their web site compared to eBay. Meanwhile, Sparkle sells bigger packages than eBay, including a 32-roll package for $34.99. (It was in stock Wednesday.)

Bounty, among the nation’s most popular brands, refers shoppers to stores for purchases.

Paper towels are typically something environmentalists discourage, because cloth towels are reusable and don’t end up in landfills.

However, the highly contagious coronavirus has changed perceptions, at least for the time being.

The Centers for Disease Control singled out paper towels as necessary in its recommendations for cleaning and disinfecting households where people have been isolated with a COVID-19 infection.

Paper towels are also recommended by sites like Familydoctor.org, which recently noted “using a disposable towel (paper towel) is best to avoid leaving germs on towels.”

Commercial bathroom products supplier One Point Partitions acknowledged the environmental issues of paper towels in a recent report, but said they are “the wiser choice” during a pandemic.

“If multiple people use the same cloth towel to dry their hands and one of them hasn’t cleaned their hands appropriately or they touched a contaminated surface before they dried their hands, every subsequent person who uses the same towel will pick up germs during the hand drying process,” the site reported.

“Because users will throw out their paper towels after they dry their hands, paper towels don’t have the same risk of cross-contamination.”

This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 10:46 AM with the headline "Paper towels or cloth? One is much safer when it comes to wiping away COVID-19."