Shop towels/grease rags

[kenh]

For a number of years I collected shop towels for everything we use them for. I had quite a collection and all were oily/greasy. All were to good to throw away abut not good enough to keep in their present state. My collection is up to about 200 now.

So remembering my time when I was servicing commercial laundry and dishwashers about 100 years ago, I remembered that we use a product generically called "break" It was an extremely alkaline product and it's job was to break up grease and oil products. In fact it is so alkaline that (in laundry) we used acid to neutralize it before adding bleach or softener.

Knowing what I know about such products I bought some powdered dish washing soap (wally world generic) like you use in your home dishwasher. I just washed 140 towels, a 5 gallon bucket stacked high. I used about a half box of the dish soap, a regular amount of liquid laundry soap and softener in the rinse cycle. The towels came out real nice. Still had some stains but perfectly clean otherwise. I did not have a lot of grease on them which helped. Mostly just oil. I figured it cost me about $7 total to to wash them. I took them to the local laundromat as "mother" did not want them in her washer. Can't say I blame her!!! Hope somebody can use this.

Ken

 

[TechNova]

Rags in a box. Clean and I burn them in woodburner or burn barrel so there is never an oily rag fire hazard.
I also have a roll of red paper towels from Fastenal for heavy grease and specialty paper towels for paint prep.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I use old clothes and towels for my shop rags. I have a metal can with a self-closing lid that I toss them in until the can is full. Then I double-bag them and put them in the trash.