What's one disposable thing that you buy and go through a lot of? And something disposable, and it takes forever to run out of this item?

Paper towels, I too go through loads. I like to wipe the sides down with them after I’ve cleaned them, I don’t like water marks.

Gravy granules. I like proper gravy from meant juices. I keep some Bisto in the cupboard for emergencies, I still have a box unopened.

Let’s see…

Razor blades seem to go really quickly, but I hardly ever have to buy q-tips, even though I use them daily.

Toilet paper we go through quickly, dishwasher detergent slower ( oh, I bought four packages for the price of one).

I go through quite a few razors but I use the reusable Handi-Wipes and so I don’t buy very many paper-towels .
=)

Quickly: Toilet paper, obvi.

Slow: Plastic spoons. I buy them just in case my son takes an applesauce or something with him to school, and I use them for my tea. If they remain in my house, they get washed and reused a bunch of times until they eventually get lost/thrown away. I bought a box of 45 in August. Still have most of them.

Cigarettes.

When passing through tax-reasonable North Carolina.

Ginger Ale, top Ramen and orange juice.

Toilet paper. I try to avoid all other disposables in my home. But even I have limits. =)

Edit: After reading other people’s responses, I’ll admit that I use disposable razors (which seem to last forever) and Q-Tips (not so much). I also use facial tissue.

I don’t think consumables like detergent, food, and cigarettes count… you guys are too hard on yourselves!

Toilet paper, of course; and tissues because my son and I have allergies and sinus stuff and we produce way too much mucus. I’ve tried to cut back on paper napkins and paper towels, but my fiancé is a creature of habit and I am a procrastinator of laundry. When my son was young and we didn’t have a dishwasher, I would buy the really cheap paper plates and napkins.

I don’t consider food items and cleansing solutions to be ‘disposable’ – although I guess buying smaller or single-use items as compared to bulk purchases is more wasteful. I buy frozen meals to bring for lunch at work, but I bring real utensils to eat it with. I usually buy the natural/organic brands which tend to use less packaging. We use refillable water jugs that we fill with filtered water, rather than bottled water.

I get the laundry pods for my son to use, because I think he tends to use too much liquid by filling the lid, rather than using the measuring guide markings – so that’s a trade-off in terms of waste. The fact that I occasionally need to re-wash stuff that I’ve left damp in the machine for a couple days is pretty wasteful, though.

I use paper towels sparingly.
I use paper coffee filters rather than reusable ones because the impact of washing out mesh ones involves wasted water, heat, soap and time. I buy a large package and they last a long time.
I buy toilet paper in rolls of 500 sheets per roll and 18 rolls in a package. I avoid wasting sheets but this product is a necessity.
I buy cleaning products in bulk to reduce packaging and I use dish-washing detergent sparingly. I avoid using more laundry soap than is actually required.
I buy food in package sizes that minimize excess packaging and avoid waste due to spoilage. I bring my cloth grocery bags to the market to avoid excess plastic grocery bags.
I recycle glass bottles and jars, cardboard and box board, metal cans, milk and soft drink containers. The local depot now refuses plastic food containers so I grudgingly must dispose of these in the trash.

Things I go through way too fast:
Toilet paper
Kcups
Razors
Cigarettes

I’m trying to think of something that lasts a long time. I’ve got nothing!

Toilet paper!

And not so fast:

Tabasco sauce. Somebody once said if you want to drive someone crazy, buy them two bottles of Tabasco sauce. No-one goes through more than one in a lifetime.

Toilet Paper
I don’t go through paper towels very fast, because I insist that people in my household use the vast supply of cloth napkins I have in the house – therefore I go through laundry soap fairly fast.

Plastic bags are constantly being replaced, so it’s hard to judge. I stash them away in the large bags bulk toilet paper comes in, and I have four of those filled with plastic bags. The supply comes in faster than it goes out.

Tissues. I buy 10–12 at a time about once every 2 weeks. I have them in every room, in every car,. on the work bench, in the garage, in the barn. Everywhere.

Razor blades last me a long time. I have a moderately heavy beard but I use them until they are rusted mass of metal. I am ‘thrifty’.

@LuckyGuy ” I have them in every room, in every car,. on the work bench, in the garage, in the barn. Everywhere.”

I don’t want to know…

@LuckyGuy I can relate! My year-round allergies prevent me from ever being without tissues. It’s an annoying need (and expensive) but I just think using a cloth hanky would get really gross after a while.

I buy the economy size container of Qtips and that seems to last for a really long time. Cigarettes and beer, not so much.

@janbb I get through a bottle os tabasco nearly each month.

Knock off Q-Tips are NO bargain:

The trademark extra cotton at the tip means the difference between a delicious ear canal massage and piercing one’s brain.

@SecondHandStoke I quite agree! No bargain “ear swabs” for me. I’ll scrimp on a lot of products, but not those

Paper towels! Especially with two puppies in the house. Plus, I go through a ton of them even cooking a meal, dabbing, wiping, drying, & draining. They are convenient, sanitary, and I like the ones you can pick a size. So its PTs & TP.

Are you counting consumables as disposable? I don’t think of things we eat and drink as disposable, although the containers may be.

I use a lot of dishwasher detergent. Tooth picks last forever, as does cling foil. I bought one roll when I moved in, and that was almost three years ago.

I hate washing dishes so I buy foam plates. I go through a ton of them. I buy a big pack of 170 plates from walmart and they last a little less than a month.

Q-tips on the other hand will last me quite a while. I buy a large box of them and they last about 6 to 8 months, maybe longer.

@longgone I buy a huge roll of commercial cling wrap from sams club. I love it because it lasts me 3 years. It’s only 16 to 20 bucks. It definitely pays for itself.

It seems like I open a new tube of toothpaste ever other day.

Condoms

Just joking!

Toilet paper, cigarettes, washing up liquid (gosh I go through so much of that), Jelly beans!

@LornaLove Every other person on this question is wishing they’d thought to say that first. :)

@LornaLove How about lube?

@janbb I love Tabasco sauce. I go through a couple small bottles of it every few months. I put it on fritos corn chips and mix it in to ketchup when I eat fries.

@flip86 Well, there you go.

@LornaLove Ha! I almost said that. It would’ve been a big fat lie, though.

@livelaughlove21 Me too!

I use paper towels like crazy. So do my parents. My dad has a million paper towel rolls stocked in his basement. I always grab a few when I go there ;)

Lip balm. I usually buy 2 or 3 at a time. My lips get chapped very easily, so I use it every day.

Wet wipes. We have a lot of young ‘uns in our family and they get very sticky, and they make other things very sticky.

Cheaters reading glasses. I get them at the dollar store, and have one pair in each room of my house where I might read a book, look at the computer, try to see the directions on a bottle of medication, read a label on a food package, plus another set for my purse, one in my car and one in my friend’s house. I tend to lose them, and every now and then one of the little screws comes out and I find out the hole is stripped, so I can’t fix ‘em.

Toilet paper, both for wiping down low, and for blowin’ up higher (we all have allergies).

Those little plastic containers that you get at Mexican restaurants, for salsa. I love salsa. At least those are recyclable.

The only thing I can think of for the takes a long time to use it up is coffee filters. I drink instant, my folks don’t drink coffee, so I only bust out coffee filters on Christmas and Thanksgiving, or when I’m straining yogurt to make This

Oh, and plastic forks and knives. They always give those to you when you get Mexican take-out, but I always eat it at home and use my regular flatware. So I just throw them in a ziplock bag, and if I ever need them for a picnic, then I use them.

I am a paper towel monster. I give the bathroom sink and toilet a good spray and wipe up with paper towels every few days. And I am a single male that lives alone and pees sitting down.

And Q-Tips for things that last forever. Q-tips just make my ear wax worse. I have to flush them with water. But I do use q-tips for cleaning electronics and the box I bought in 2005 is still going strong.

These days: Gasoline.

My car is in active storage while I endure my time in NYC

The tank is filled with ethanol (fucking corn) free gas and treated with fuel stabilizer.

It’s gonna take months to empty.

@SecondHandStoke And the second part of the question?

@Mama_Cakes

Oops. My comment was a reply to the second part of the question.

The first part?

Razors. I’m extremely fussy about the quality of my shave. In fact my wife was surprised to learn I didn’t use a safety or straight razor.

Those cartridges that seem insanely expensive are so for a reason: They are a miracle of engineering.

Some friends are shocked that I sometimes get a mere three or four uses out of a cartridge.

There’s actually a LOT of factors:

How often I have to shave, water hardness, just to name two.

Also: The gasoline issue reminds me of one of the technical problems in The Walking Dead:

Gasoline goes bad, often quickly, evaporates something nasty and is formulated differently for various factors, season and location are some examples.

If I were caught in the The Walking Dead world I’d be known as the guy that’s always hoarding fuel stabilizer.

@SecondHandStoke The Walking Dead. Now you’re speaking my language. lol
I’ve often wondered about the gas situation on that show. But then Daryl Dixon shows up and I totally forget about everything else. lol

The gasoline in abandoned cars and in underpump tanks would spoil in a rather short time.

In the cars especially the gas would thicken in the fuel system.

Old and now illegal metal station tanks would eventually fail.

There’s also the matter or water contamination. Fuel drier (mostly alcohol) would stave off the problem for a while.

Oh and Daryl and Carol. Just how HOT is that? She’s so beautiful.

My marriage is my third intergernerational relationship.

^ Main problem with the movie I Am Legend – the Will Smith one.

^That was interesting to watch as a New Yorker.

I laughed when I realized he was using the Shelby to hunt in.

@Seek_Kolinahr And here I thought the whole people-turning-into-crazy-killer-mutants was the part that made that movie unrealistic. :)

That falls under suspension of disbelief for the purpose of storytelling.

It’s the lack of attention to details that bothers me.

^_^

^ In the film he was highly resourceful.

I assumed he collected gas and and then treated it.

I assumed the truck ran on diesel.

I like facial make up removing wipes. They are soothing, especially the Garnier ones I have now. They are easier than washing your face at night when you’re tired, and kinda fun. Usually they come in packs of 25–30, so I buy at least one a month.

I never have to buy cotton balls, soap (literally I have never bought soap, people send me it as gifts freakishly often, also I don’t shower as much as some people)....face lotion, which I use daily, I only have to buy probably twice a year! Same with coffee filters.

Paper towels because they are near-sterile.
I use them as plates for my food. And I use them to clean the counter.
If I used real plates, I’d have to wash them, and California is in a draught.
If I used paper plates, that is just wasteful because I don’t need them to be that thick, unless I’m eating spaghetti or something like that. The food-soaked paper towels can be thrown in the green waste bin, unless there’s meat, in which case they should be thrown in garbage.