Business Opportunities Weblog

July 21, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Mary Beth Karchella-MacCumbee belongs to what she calls “the cloth community” and tries, as much as possible, to live a paperless life.

A skilled seamstress who whips fabric around a sewing machine like a magician doing sleight-of-hand tricks, the Wilkins mother of three turns out cloth diapers, panty liners and bags of all shapes and sizes for busy female executives, college students and youngsters bound for elementary classes.

She sews baby slings out of cotton and silk and even makes cloth menstrual pads, which she has shipped to customers as far away as Australia as part of her home business making “alternative cloth family products.”

But surely there’s got to be toilet paper, right? Not for this family. There’s no paper towels, facial tissues or toilet paper. Instead, she sews cloth personal wipes out of hemp velour, cotton flannel, cotton velour or bamboo fleece.

“Bamboo is soft. There’s nothing wrong with your bottom being treated to bamboo,” she says.

Used personal wipes go into a waterproof bag and then are emptied into a diaper pail. From there they’re washed and used again.

By striving to live a paperless life, she said, “I have less garbage.”

When the junk mail arrives, she throws it in a recycling bag and also reuses computer printer paper. Although her children often do homework assignments on the computer, she recycles the paper once the work is graded.

Getting other people to switch from paper to cloth has become a bit of a mission for her.

Photo by Andy Starnes.

In Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Tags: Eco-friendly, Family, Niche