Disposable Sheets Allow College Kids to Avoid Laundry Forever

At college, many young people start to stretch their adult wings for the first time, learning how to be independent and take care of themselves without any hovering parents. Some things, however, are hard to adjust to—like figuring out how often to wash your sheets. Luckily, as Curbed recently highlighted, college students don’t need to worry about how they’re going to get clean sheets anymore. They can just buy one-use, disposable ones from Boston-based company Beantown Bedding, which sells sheet sets that never need to be washed. Just throw them in the compost bin and buy another set.

The company was founded by two women who, after sending their teens off to college, discovered that college kids are really terrible at doing their laundry. “As a result, they become the victims of a sickening accumulation of sweat, body oils, bacteria, germs, and dead skin cells which host millions of dust mites,” they write on the company website, blaming frequent student sickness on unwashed sheets. But laundering your bedding is a lot of work, they argue. “It didn’t take long for Kirsten and Joan to realize that washing and drying sheets just takes too much time.”

Do people typically wash their own sheets on vacation? And does it take an entire day?

The biodegradable one-use sheets—which the company also bills as a resource for hospitals and the hospitality industry—are made from eucalyptus wood pulp, but they still probably don't live up to the company's "eco-friendly" description. While the sheets may not need to go in the landfill, that doesn’t mean that manufacturing a ton of disposable sheets doesn’t require environmental resources.

Twin sheet sets start at $20, and yes, you can get a monthly subscription.

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