Hankies or Tissues.

Neither, I use loo roll for noses (mine and snotty grandchildren) I judge the severity of a cold by the number of loo rolls it uses up.
My mother used to boil hankies in a huge cauldron. We called it "hankie stew". I have the cauldron still and store dry dog food in it.

I have four large empty tissue boxes to recycle and two bins full of used tissues to go in the non-recyclable wheelie bin. Gross! This is clearly a million-tissue virus.

DBH always uses hankies and always has. He says it is because he does so much sport, and the wind is less likely to blow them away. He uses them all the time because mostly it is to wipe his glasses when it's raining. He does so much sport that I just do him a separate wash anyway, and the hankies go in with that. I just try not to touch them. (shudder)

I'm with granjura, kitchen towel. Stronger and less likely to poke a finger through a soggy patch accidentally. I burn them all at the end of the day, they make wonderful fire lighters.

I too used to want to cry when I received embroidered hankies as birthday presents. So did my mother, she always hated them and our beds each had a loo roll placed by the side when we had a cold! Going to school with a cold was a nightmare, if you had a cold and ran out of hanky, the only time she let us use them. I remember rows of hankies laid end to end on the school radiators when half the class had colds. How horrible! But the teachers said nothing.

I was wondering about soaking (germ ridden) hankies. When I have a streaming cold such as I have had for a few weeks I go through boxes of tissues. I really don't want to pass my germs on to anyone else so I use a tissue and then bin it. Surely one would have to have hundreds of hankies to hand in order to use one and then wash it.

The hankies I used to use on hill hikes did get pretty damp, anya. I cured that problem by pinning my hankies to a rucksack strap and letting them blow dry. Rhinitis and hay fever nose fluid (I do not call it snot because it isn't snot) is mainly water, no worse than tears from one's eyes. It's not infected stuff.

Hankies for outdoors and tissues indoors here.
Kessie you could always get OH to wash his own hankies.
I do.

About nappies- very interesting to see more mums switching to washable shaped (modern- not the horrible squares we had) nappies with a liner for 'solids'- as refuse has to be paid by weight here, as Pampers and the like weigh a ton when the crystals turn to gel (environmental impact????) - certainly concentrates the mind, as well as the weight. Plus of course the return to more effort made to potty train a bit earlier again.

Hankies are one of the most disgusting things known to mankind, and if mankind want to use them, then womankind should refuse to wash them!

I wasn't too good at dealing with nappies, much heaving went on, to the endless amusement of others. I didn't have a choice though.

The habit of hawking (is that the word?) in the streets hasn't helped my total aversion to all things snot-related either.

I have indeed washed many sh1ty nappies !

However, I would chose said nappies over dozens of handkies full of snot and bogies!

Thanks anno. New systems have eliminated pollution almost 100%- and of course councils are very strict, and people very watchful- of not putting dangerous material, especially batteries, neon tubes, bulbs, paints, chemicals, etc, in the rubbish to be incinerated. And as you say, modern system are built so the burning process can provide heat for private housing nearby, or industrial plants, council buildings or hospitals, etc- so win, win double wammy.

Must be down to money! Our councillors would rather give themselves huge bonuses!

I always use handkerchiefs because I get a sore nose like many GNs have already said. DH doesn't use tissues either.
Some one told me when I was first married that a man taking a freshly laundered handkerchief out of his pocket was showing the world - and other women, that there was a loving/possessive woman behind him.

I don't mind ironing or washing. I enjoy it, it is not a chore for me.

Incineration has been a bone of contention in the waste disposal industry for some time. In the 1990s there was considerable opposition to the proposed construction of an incinerator in our locality because of the presence of carcinogenic dioxins in the ash. I believe that many of these misgivings have now been overcome and that there is such a thing as safe incineration. However, the landfill tax encouraged local waste disposal authorities to look for alternative solutions and in Cheshire, our recyclable waste goes to a waste separation plant to be re-used. I have very little waste in my 'non-recyclable' bin apart from (at the moment) piles of used tissues which I don't think anyone would wish to recycle! The maxim 'reduce, re-use, recycle' is the watchword - although perhaps incineration, particularly in the form of waste to energy schemes, may be part of the pattern in future.

Now for a digression à la Jura; - why is UK still using landfill sites- and not go on to modern, very efficient and low pollution incineration for waste? I don't get it.

Here in Switzerland, incineration is the only way, as land is either mountains, lakes or farmland and villages/towns- we just do not have space to constantly fill in 1000s of football pitches with rubbish. Any answers?

I don't understand the washing products that claim the perfume 'lasts for a week and bursts of perfume'. Does this mean people wear clothes for longer without washing them? Bizarre concept to me!

I can remember my dad and disgusting hankies.

For along while I had allergic rhinitis caused by using perfumed Shake and Vac.
I eventually discovered the cause, it said on the box "this product might cause allergies."
I stopped using it but the effects lasted for several years.

With other peoples perfumes, room fresheners and heavily perfumed washing powder, I would feel my nose suddenly blocking up, I would begin sneezing and my nose started streaming like a tap. Very soggy tissues in a plastic bag.
This was eventually cleared up by using a mildly steroidal nasal spray.

I now avoid these "perfume lasts for a week and bursts of perfume washing powders" but it's hard to find any that don't have this in these days.

That is when I became a complete hoarder of packets of tissues. I sort of panic if I dont have one handy.

I wouldn't use the same tissue again and again, it'd get binned PDQ. So if the same rules apply for hankies people must have a plentiful supply of these or even if it's just a runny nose from hay fever, they must get pretty soggy surely?

The difference between a runny nose caused by rhinitis or hay fever and a runny nose caused by a viral infection is large enough that I shall continue to use hankies without fear of infecting anyone or anything else.

You mean I'm not saving the world after all ?

Tegan Be comforted; they don't make tissues from hardwoods.

Anya I agree, but few of them regularly sit on my lap.

I personally can think if at least 100 things more revolting than a 2-year old with a cold

I agree about not using hankies when you have got a runny nose from a cold. However, not sure if everyone else is as bad as me at doing this but I seem to have tissues in every pocket; fleeces, coats, jeans etc which just get thrown away, most of the time without being used. And I often wonder how many rainforests worth of trees are wasted in this way. So I do try to keep hankies in some pockets and, if I stood for parliament it would be part of my manifesto. Hankies do have their use in this day and age.

I never wear mascara, even so-called waterproof mascara, to funerals.

Tissues are much better at blotting runny mascara, though.