No Stupid Questions

They aren't sterile, and I've never actually run into anyone that seemed to think they are.

What they are is clean enough
The paper is rolled up, relatively dry, usually wrapped in a barrier, and isn't a food product that will draw unusual amounts of pathogen carrying critters. So you end up with something that is cleaner than the things you use it on, akin to rag you pull out of a drawer that you washed weeks ago. Or a dish that's been sitting in your cabinet for similar periods.

When it comes down to what they're used for commonly, that's clean enough. It won't be bringing pathogens into contact with anything you'll take inside your body. That's all that matters.

Mind you, it assumes you're storing them in a way that keeps junk off of them. But as long as that assumption holds, you can use them as napkins (which are no more sterile), use them to mop up spills (likely cleaner than av actual mop), as a crumb barrier and wrapper for a sandwich, whatever.

There's really nothing you would be likely to use them for that would be problematic, particularly in an emergency. Better than toilet paper in that regard, as tp is treated to break down easily in water (and the chemicals used to do that stink btw). If you need a wad of something to cram down on a wound to control bleeding, as an example, paper towels would be better than a random shirt you pulled off your body, as it's going to have lower concentrations of things like staph, yeast, and strep, as well as the numerous other critters that populate our hides even fresh out of a shower.

What kind of nincompoop assumes paper towels are sterile?

We never assumed that. Also why would they need to be sterile in the first place? There main job is to get dirty.

Anything that has less shit on it than my hands do is good enough for me.

do they? do they assume normal towels are sterile?

I dont personally use paper towels for anything I require to be sterile

If I was washing my hands I’d expect the soap to do the anti microbial work, and rinsing with tap water to remove the microbe corpses, the paper towel is just to absorb the leftover tap water

Same deal if I use a paper towel to swab a pan while cooking, I don’t expect the paper towel to be sterile, I just get the gunk out and then heat the pan to a safe temperature

Unless it's been autoclaved or packaged in a "clean room" I don't assume anything's sterile . I would say that mass produced paper products like that are closer to sanitary.

Is anyone assuming they're sterile (aseptic) tho? I would hope nobody is using paper towels for anything important in a medical context. In other cases their sterility is not important at all, interacting with microbes (includiing pathogenic ones) is a normal part of everyday life and our immune systems are pretty good at dealing with them (unless you are exposed to a lot of something particularly nasty, like during a pandemic or by being sneezed at or smth). Unless you go full-on germaphobe, the microbial contamination that exists on new paper towels is nothing compared to other stuff you interact with (smartphone, door handles, kitchen sponge, fresh produce, etc).

Otherwise, they're self-evidently cleaner than whatever I'm trying to clean with them, that's why they work for cleaning in the first place. If I swipe a kitchen counter with them after cooking, it will very obviously have less gunk and shmutz now, which means it will be cleaner.

They're pretty clean so long as it's indoors and ideally not in a bathroom. There's a massive difference of a new paper towel and a reused towel. I wear contacts and it doesn't take much to notice residue on my hands/eyelid area.

If I'm bleeding any more than a drop or two of blood, I'm reaching for the closest remotely clean and absorbent material while I go find a real bandage and some neosporin. 99% of the time that is a paper towel since they're always around and handy. Never got an infection that way, and I think it's a perfectly reasonable reaction when you or someone else is bleeding...

Edit: and to be clear I don't think paper towels are sterile, but neither is the air that I'm running through to go get a bandage; might as well not get blood everywhere while I'm at it.

The industrial process of making paper is pretty sterile (Nobody checks and guarantees it, though).

Clearly the only way to be sure is to wrap each sheet in plastic.

/fucking sarcasm

I can't even with some people.

People were licking door handles during covid lockdowns, and encouraging their kids in school to cough outside of their masks during classes, and you think anyone has any kind of understanding of the concept of sterility?

Also, things rarely need to be actually sterile in your daily life, they just need to not be contaminated. And if you need to put a paper towel on a cut for example, you can just put disinfectant on it first and that probably would be enough.

Think about how long that paper has been sealed up in the plastic wrap. Germs and bacteria can survive for a limited amount of time. I submit anything on the paper towel is dead.

Might the bleaching and reconstituting-process of paper fibres play a role? And then, common industry standards and checks?

(not saying you're wrong)

Well actually yes and no. Cheaper products are not the way to go when it comes to general health. Toilet paper ruins many things on your skin due to abrasive toxic chemicals.

That’s why I choose Clorox Scentiva Disinfectant Wipes, only $5.97 on Amazon

Because they're white. White = clean is decades worth of marketing into every aspect of our day to say life. You see white cloth, white paper, white paint and you automatically think "clean".

The paper rolls themselves are variably clean or sterile because each company has its own level of ethics enforcement.

How it's Made show had an episode on them, if I'm remembering properly, and their production involves washing and cooking them at high temperature, so there is that initial sense of sterilization for the most part. However, what happens after can add a lot of bad stuff. From how often they maintain their equipment, whether the packaging itself is clean, delivery and storage until sale, there are a lot of chances something nasty can hitch a ride along the way. More so if the paper is scented and attracts rodents thinking they're getting a nice meal.

And that's just the kitchen paper. There's also recycled paper which tends to use all kinds of nasty shit from wherever and the recycling process simply can't completely sanitize.

Anyway, paper towels have the perception of seeming clean because they look clean, but they usually aren't.