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Paper Household Essentials
Paper Household Essentials Delivery or Pickup
The Instacart buying guide to paper household essentials
Paper products are the unsung heroes of any household, making our lives more convenient, comfortable, and safer at every turn. Shop with Instacart for the paper household essentials you rely on, delivered to your door in as little as 2 hours!
Types of paper household essentials
Our homes are full of paper household essentials. You've probably got some in your kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, and other common locations. When we say paper household essentials, we're talking about the following products:
- Toilet paper.
- Paper towels.
- Facial tissues.
- Paper plates and bowls.
- Paper napkins.
- Wet wipes.
Consider the thickness
Thick paper products are usually the best. The thicker the product, the stronger, softer, and more absorbent it tends to be. You can determine how thick many paper products are by assessing the ply count. One-ply products are fragile as they have just one layer of paper. Four-ply products are incredibly thick because they have four layers of paper. You'll usually see ply count on toilet paper, facial tissues, napkins, and paper towels.
Some paper products, such as paper plates, never show the ply count. However, you can gauge how thick these products are by looking for keywords on the packaging and in product descriptions. When you're browsing Instacart, look out for words like “ultra” and “strong.”
Virgin vs. recycled
Paper products made with virgin paper use brand new paper. Recycled products contain recycled paper, which is waste paper remade into a new product. Most recycled paper products contain a mix of recycled and virgin paper. The higher the percentage of recycled paper, the better it is for the environment because recycling keeps paper products out of landfills.
Composition
Traditional paper products are made from wood pulp. Some modern options now use alternative materials, such as bamboo. Bamboo is more sustainable because this grass grows much faster than trees. Sugar cane, hemp, and flax are a few more alternative materials used for more eco-friendly paper products.
Paper Household Essentials Near Me
Buy your favorite Paper Household Essentials online with Instacart. Order Facial Tissues, Paper Napkins, Paper Towels, and more from local and national retailers near you and enjoy on-demand, contactless delivery or pickup within 2 hours.
Browse more Paper Household Essentials categories:
FAQs about paper household essentials
Paper household essentials with FSC certification are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. Certified products are made per the organization's standards on responsible forest management. Paper household essentials with FSC certification have a "checkmark-and-tree" logo on their packaging. There are three separate types of FSC certification:
- FSC Mix: Products with this certification are made from a mix of timber from an FSC-certified forest and either reclaimed timber or timber from another controlled source.
- FSC Recycled: Products with this certification are made from 100% recycled material, including up to 15% pre-consumer waste.
- FSC 100%: Products with this certification are made entirely from timber from FSC-certified forests.
Paper household essentials with PEFC certification are certified by the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. These products must be manufactured to a high environmental, social, and ethical standard. There are two PEFC certifications:
- PEFC Certified: Products with this certification are made from at least 70% timber sourced from PEFC-certified forests and other controlled sources.
- PEFC Recycled: Products with this certification are made from at least 70% PEFC-certified material from recycled sources and wood from controlled sources.
Household paper essentials marked "elemental chlorine-free bleaching," or "EFC bleaching," use a less toxic whitening process. Elemental chlorine gas makes dioxins that can harm the environment and our health. EFC paper products aren't necessarily made without chlorine. However, if they use chlorine for bleaching, they use chlorine dioxide, which doesn't emit harmful chemicals. If you're concerned about the impact of bleaching, you can also look for unbleached paper products on Instacart.
You should dispose of your used wet wipes in the trash rather than the toilet. Traditional wet wipes can block toilet pipes and cause plumbing problems later on. Some companies market flushable wet wipes, but experts insist these may cause similar blockages. Studies show that even flushable wet wipes don't break down as toilet paper does, so they could potentially cause blockages as easily as traditional wet wipes do. Keeping a small trash can in your bathroom can prevent the temptation to flush any wet wipes.
While paper is usually recyclable, household paper essentials are not recyclable. Household paper essentials become contaminated when they contact foods, beverages, oils, and waste products. These substances can actually contaminate a whole batch of recycled paper, so it's best to simply trash them.
Many household paper essentials, such as paper towels and napkins, are already made from recycled paper. After each recycling process, paper fibers become shorter. Typically, once these fibers are used for paper towels or napkins, they're too short to be usable after another recycling process.
If you use unbleached paper towels and napkins and they're not greasy, you can keep them out of the landfill by composting them. Bury these paper products in your compost, and they should break down over time. Avoid composting thicker paper products, such as paper plates and wet wipes, which will not break down as easily.