By: Jennifer Brite, This Old House online
Green Microfiber Cleans With Water
 The Eco-Cloth, a soft blue microfiber cleaning cloth, cleans glass and polishes stainless steel with just a little water. Left dry, it makes a great duster. The secret of its effectiveness is the engineered fibers, a combination of oil-loving polyester and water-loving polyamide, so small that 75,000 are packed into each square inch. Each fiber is 100 times finer than a human hair and segmented lengthwise into 16 strands. The segments work like one of those multi-edged windshield wipers to scoop up dirt and hold onto it without scratching. To clean an Eco-Cloth, just pop it in the washing machine on high heat and then dry it without softeners. The manufacturer claims it will survive 300 washings.
Eco-Cloth: Special "green" microfiber cleans with water
The daily routine for cleaning on my glass-topped kitchen table hasn't varied in years: Spritz with some smelly glass cleaner, wipe up with paper towels. Whole forests have probably been felled to supply the paper for the towels, and Lord knows how many vat-loads of Windex I've paid for (or pounds of noxious vapors I've inhaled). But those days are behind me since I switched over to Eco-Cloth.The soft blue microfiber hand towel cleans glass and polishes stainless steel just by dampening it with a little water. Left dry, it makes a great dusting cloth. And even though it's not sticky, I've used it like a tack cloth for painting and wood refinishing projects. It does a great job picks up all those little motes that a vacuum misses.
The secret of its effectiveness is the engineered fibers, a combination of oil-loving polyester and water-loving polyamide, so small that 75,000 are packed in each square inch. (I'll have to trust them on that one.) Each fiber is 100 times finer than a human hair, yet it is segmented lengthwise into 16 strands that in cross section resemble a pizza. The segments work like one of those multi-edged windshield wipers to scoop up dirt and hold onto it without scratching. (Cheaper microfibers lack this segmentation and fall short on pickup power.) To clean an Eco-cloth, just pop it in the washing machine, and then dry it sans softeners (they gum up the segments. The manufacturer claims it will survive 300 washings. But here's the problem: When Eco-cloth is in the washing machine, I can't use it. So I guess I'll have to go buy a couple more so there's alway a clean one handy. At $10 a pop, that may seem a little pricey, but the way I figure it, that's about the price for a bottle of window cleaner and a package of paper towels.
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