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November 16, 2005

Boring vs. Interesting Day 22

Well, while I'm waiting for my ride to pick me up after that brutal snow storm last night, I've decided to finish off this blog entry concerning my day yesterday. Yesterday my eldest son and I conducted a science experiment for his class where we tried to determine the absorbency of 3 different varieties of paper towels.

We put the towels into a cup of water (250 ml):

Then after a minute we removed the towel:

Then we measured how much water was left in the measuring cup in order to determine how much water each sheet could hold.

Here is our results:

Bounty: 50 ml per sheet
Viva: 56 ml per sheet
Sparkle: 28 ml per sheet

This computes to this much water per roll:

Bounty: 4500 ml per roll (90 sheets in a roll of Bounty)
Viva: 3920 ml per roll (70 sheets)
Sparkle: 1680 ml per roll (60 sheets)

Then, we deduced which type of paper towel is the best value by dividing the number of milliliters per roll by the price for the roll:

Bounty: $1.69 = 26 ml of water per penny
Viva: $1.79 = 22 ml per penny
Sparkle $1.06 = 15 ml per penny

So, Bounty is the best value. It is cheaper that the Viva brand, it holds more total water, and you get more bang for your buck.

All in all it was a fun and interesting experiment. Tonight we will make a poster for his presentation. That's all for now. Stay tuned for some more stadium ramblings...

Interesting days: 14
Boring days: 8

Posted by snackeru at November 16, 2005 7:46 AM | Boring vs. Interesting

Comments

I must be the second biggest geek in the world. that was very interesting. I am devoted to Viva, although usually a big cheapskate, I just like how it feels and that I can rinse it out and use it again. I can't believe I just admitted to that in a global forum. Molly is going to get a big kick out of that.

Posted by: Cheesehead's wife at November 16, 2005 9:56 AM

Thanks, Rachel! I think it is kind of interesting too. And I never considered the idea that you might want to use a Viva towel over again. I suppose you could say if you only use your paper towels once, then Bounty is the way to go. But if you are the type of person that rinses them out and uses them over again, then Viva would be a good choice. Very thought provoking...

Posted by: Shane at November 16, 2005 10:17 AM

Why is the amount of water a paper towel holds the most important feature? Very rarely do I use a paper towel where it becomes completely saturated. If you don't use a paper towel to its full capacity, then the cheaper the towel will win out.

Now, if I were to find a circumstance where the towel in question were to be rinsed out, I would use a cloth towel. That is why I have cloth towels. It is also why I have rags. This is a much more cost effective way to go than using a desposable towel.

I'm just saying...

Posted by: DouglasG at November 16, 2005 11:01 AM

How did I know you were going to blog this?

Posted by: the person doing the experiment at November 16, 2005 4:24 PM