The Top Line:

MAYBE buy. We liked Who Gives A Crap Bamboo Paper Towels enough to give it a green light: bamboo paper is more sustainable than tree-based paper towels, the cost is reasonable, and the paper doesn’t shred in our hands. It’s not going to be as luxurious-feeling as normal paper towels, which is fine, and the rolls run a little smaller, but we tend to use reusable Swedish dishcloths like Redecker or DII. For those must-one-time-use paper, WGAC is good option.

The Breakdown:

• Cost & Products: 6 rolls for $16

• How ‘Clean’ Is This? A blend of bamboo, which is cleaner than tree pulp since bamboo is relatively more easy to cultivate, and sugarcane, which would otherwise be considered ‘waste.’

• Packaging: Ships in a cardboard box. Each roll is individually wrapped.

• Purchasing & Shipping: Straightforward purchasing on the Who Gives a Crap website. Free shipping on $25+.

• Good to know: A whopping 50% of profits are donated to help build toilets and shipping is carbon neutral.

• Note: Who Gives a Crap is a B-corporation. We love that. Read more about b-corporations here. Normal corporations have a goal to make more money for their owners. B-Corps do that too, but they also set specific, social and ethical goals such as governance, environment, and workers.

• What’s Your Impact? Bamboo grows much faster than trees and require less water and other resources to grow before harvesting for production of paper towels, thus making it more sustainable than the tree-based paper towels.

The Good:

✔ Made from bamboo and sugarcane

✔ Do not shred or tear

✔ Very strong and absorbing material

✔ B-Corporation

The Bad:

✗ Not the cheapest option

✗ Rolls run a little small

✗ No Select-a-Size

The Experience

Context: We hate crappy paper towels, so we’ve alternated between Seventh Gen but end up going back to non-recycled versions since we end up using more pieces of recycled paper to compensate anyway. So, since we saw that Who Gives a Cap had bamboo paper towels, we gave them a try:

• The rolls are shorter than your average grocery store roll: this is so that Who Gives a Crap can streamline packaging. We don’t mind.

• The sheets are 9”x9” .. a perfect square. We wished they had smaller sheets.

• Sheets are easy to rip on the seams, but if you want a little corner, good luck.

• This cuts two ways: being tough to snag off a little piece of paper towel means that the material is very strong, so no holes here.

• No, it’s not as luxurious-feeling as bounty.

• Also, it’s not going to fall apart like the cheapies from the grocery store.

The Cost

We did our best to standardize paper towels. A family of four uses about 1 roll per week!

Money Report: Who Gives a Crap Bamboo Paper Towels is not the cheapest option, but it’s not bad! Unfortunately, it doesn’t beat Seventh Generation or Marcal’s recycled paper towels.

Our Recommendation:

MAYBE buy. We liked Who Gives A Crap Bamboo Paper Towels enough to give it a green light: bamboo paper is more sustainable than tree-based paper towels, the cost is reasonable, and the paper doesn’t shred in our hands. It’s not going to be as luxurious-feeling as normal paper towels, which is fine, and the rolls run a little smaller. but we tend to use reusable Swedish dishcloths like Redecker or DII. For those must-one-time-use paper, WGAC is good option.

We're on a mission to reduce our personal carbon footprint with small, hopefully easy, changes in our home to fight against climate change. This means we're looking for products that may be all natural, ideally zero waste, reusable or compostable -- while still being affordable!