Why paper towels weren’t working for me (well, sometimes).

Let me set the scene: It’s dinner time and you’re all sitting around the table. Tonight is spag-bol (your favourite, naturally).

You’re wearing your favourite white pants you bought on Black Friday after waiting months for them to go on sale. You’re usually so careful when wearing white, but a brief flash crosses your mind. You remember how last month’s pizza night and a few too many cocktails combined and now you’re four scoops of stain remover deep into dealing with the tomato (tomato, garlic and oregano to be specific) stain on your used-to-be-favourite white shirt. You’re coming around to the idea of donating the shirt. Someone else would love it right, maybe they won’t even notice the stain?

The smell of tomato and herbs passes over your nostrils and you’re brought back to the dinner table. “I’ll put a paper towel on my lap instead of changing my pants” you think to yourself. You have a healthy risk appetite (and at this point, a healthy appetite, too) so you feel you’ve balanced your risk-to-inconvenience threshold for now and it’s safe to dig in.

Your plate is now empty, stomach is full and you feel a sense of relief when you look down and think to yourself, “See, there was no need to change my pants. Didn’t spill a thing.”

Moving into the kitchen, your plate goes in the dishwasher. Knife and fork too. “Hmm, what do I do with this paper towel. It’s not dirty but… it’s not clean. I guess I’ll just fold it back up and stick it in the middle of the roll? But I’ve already scrunched it up. Hmm I guess I’ll throw it out.”

You feel… something. Like something’s not quite right but you’re not sure what to make of it.

The next night, another dirty-but-not-clean paper towel sits on the bench. The same feeling hits you and you start to connect the dots, realising this is what it feels like when something just isn’t working quite right.

I experienced this feeling over and over before I started to realise a lot of the time when I’m using paper towels, I’m trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They’re great when you’ve got a square hole, but there needs to be a re-definition of what one-time use products are best for. We don’t dry our dishes then throw out the tea towel, or have a shower then throw out the bath towel, do we? So why is there not a reusable solution for times when we don’t actually want or need a paper towel.

There’s no reason one-time products can’t be given a shake-up, and for us to reset the norms as to when we use certain products over the other. I started Bela in the hopes that I can help other people with this same feeling, and that we can all start using products which just work better.

- Nicole