/ Magazine / Eco-service in food and catering sector, fabric or paper?

Eco-service in food and catering sector, fabric or paper?

There is a lot of talk about eco-compatibility and respect for the environment. It’s a goal that requires good practices. Good practices must start with daily habits. Sitting down at the table is a pleasant gesture that must also be accompanied by the care for the environment. A simple, virtuous, and daily gesture. We are talking about the circular economy and, in particular, about reuse. In a research study presented a few years ago at Ecomondo on a comparative analysis of environmental and economic impacts, the results were eloquent. Reusable tablecloths impact the greenhouse effect 48% less than disposable items, 91% of the materials are recovered, and they can withstand 75 wash cycles. There’s no contest. And then the “great frontier” is represented not only by the circular economy but also by the economy related to the “reuse” of a product for multiple cycles, thus overcoming the logic of single-use. Furthermore, consider that textiles leaving industrial laundries are reused in different sectors as rags or other products. At the disposal stage, 55% of single-use items end up in landfills, 45% go to incinerators, whereas, after 75 cycles of industrial washing, only 8% of fabric table linens go to landfills and 1% are destined for incineration, the rest is sent to recycling. So?

We discuss now about this with Cristina Salvati, the Managing Director of MASA. “Let’s try to take a snapshot of the current situation regarding the use of fabric tablecloths: there are restaurants that, for reasons of culture, tradition, and quality, maintain the tablecloth, but there are also many others that use disposable ones of poor quality. There is no care for the service. These are often places frequented by young people who consume quick meals. High-end restaurants do not use paper on the table. There are also places that are making their way by choosing for hybrid solutions using only the napkin, but losing the culture of “dressing the table with quality”. The use of runners and placemats is increasing, even just for lunch. There are very different situations. In some cases, it was adopted the trend of covering a beautiful table with just a napkin for aesthetical and architectural reasons, at the expense of hygiene. Considering that tables are usually frequented by countless people, hygiene is often not really guaranteed, as dozens of tables are being cleaned with the same rag.

Aren’t customers bothered by such poor hygienic conditions? After the turbulent years of the health crisis, seeing and accepting such behaviours is leaving us perplexed. There is a lack of sensitivity and attention to hygiene, which is honestly important not only at home but also in all the places we are frequenting, especially where we have a meal. What can we do about it?” It’s a formative, educational, and pedagogical act. Just as we use to eat by using the cutlery, it is also necessary to eat on a proper and clean table. Communication and information campaigns are important, and any initiative in this direction would be highly welcomed. Let’s also consider that in many cases, customers pay a cover charge and receive a paper tablecloth with a paper napkin. It’s desolating. Does the disposal of single-use items pollute more compared to the reuse of tablecloths? There is a lot of talk about the Green Deal and environmental awareness. There are clear European regulations in many areas, and we should move in the same direction in our field, which is closely related to catering, hospitality, and tourism,” concludes Cristina Salvati.

“For quite some time now, the world of food service has seen an increase in the use of paper, which today is no longer the simple “fluttering” napkin that we have all used at least once, but has also undertaken various processes that make it more appealing to the restaurants due to its resemblance to a product made from a textile fibre,” we are talking about this with Jacopo Cappelletti, the Sales Manager Italy of GASTALDI. “It is clear that the main reason of choosing the paper is cost-effectiveness, but there are several aspects that should convince the entrepreneur to select instead a textile table linen. First of all, it is important to highlight the issue of hygiene: fabric table linen is washed and sanitized after each use, and ready for covering the table that, in addition to being of undeniably higher quality, offers greater health guarantee. Secondly, it is worth mentioning the issue of reuse and ecosustainability.

A cloth napkin, unlike a paper one, can be washed and sanitised dozens and dozens of times, guaranteeing a considerable saving of water and energy resources and definitely a lower environmental impact.
Moreover, with a napkin of this kind, one moves away from the logic of disposability and the various consequences it entails, linked mainly to the disposal chain and to recycling that is often difficult to achieve in the correct manner. Finally, in our opinion, in addition to these evident advantages, there is an added value that a textile table cloth can provide compared to paper, and that is the care for the place where the customer is being welcomed. There is no doubt that a properly arranged table with carefully cared-for table linen is certainly more pleasing and adds much more value to any restaurant and the food that it serves. For all these reasons, we believe that textiles still have a lot to offer in the food service sector and that we need a major reflection if we want to return to more consistent supplies”.

“The restaurants that are using the paper for covering their tables believe that there are significant savings, not so much on purchasing but more on the management,” says Maurizio Calloni from TESSILTORRE, “because at the end of the day everything is thrown away but without properly disposing the paper. If there would be a correct approach for disposal, even the use of paper would lose from its appeal. Consider the example of used oil, restaurant owners have a register where they need to note the proper loading and disposal of the oil. As textile manufacturers, we have a special register where we record all cotton production waste and same applies for the packing boxes. The precise application of current regulations should ensure the proper disposal of paper used in the food and service industry. Dirty paper, once separated from other waste, should be sent to specialized recycling centres. Here, waste paper is subjected to a treatment process that transforms it into cellulose, the raw material for producing new paper.

Of course, this doesn’t happen very often, and this “evasive” behaviour has a negative impact on the environment, unlike the use of textile tablecloths, which industrial laundries wash and sanitize in compliance with environmental and quality protocols and certifications. I would also like to make a small remark. During the COVID times, at Tessiltorre, we fought a battle over the concept of single-use items. Paper is single-use, but fabric is also used only once; however, in the logic of the circular economy, it is washed, sterilized, and put back on the table. The difference in terms of environmental impact is clear to everyone. Even in terms of hygiene, there is much to be said. Fabric tablecloths are sanitized, ensuring cleanliness in accordance with ecological and sanitary standards, while paper, which in many cases comes from non- Eu countries, is not supported by production processes that certify the types of products used and the production systems. Besides being aesthetically unpleasing, this kind of paper is not smelling so good either,” concludes Maurizio Calloni.

“The issue regarding fabric and/or disposable items should be evaluated from two perspectives,” says Andrea Rovea, the CEO of PAROTEX. “On one hand, could be the poor service of the laundry, and on the other hand, is related to the aesthetics of the table. Additionally, another significantly important aspect, is the that paper seems to be more practical. It often happens that laundries impose a type of service, such as delivery method, minimum quantities, etc., which some restaurants are not able to manage, being forced, unwillingly, to choose paper. There are too many obstacles standing out in the way of increasing the use of table linen on the restaurants’ tables. In some cases, I notice a lack of willingness from the laundry to find a compromise. There are new establishments designed by trendy architects that feature valuable tables, and in such cases, tablecloths would cover the beauty of the table.

Certainly, in these cases, one can consider a runner or a placemat to combine the table’s beauty with the fabric’s beauty without choosing the disposables. We also have to deal with some laundries that focus mainly on numbers and turnover, often neglecting the ecological aspect, and moreover on recycling. On the long run, this latter aspect is detrimental for the market expectations. If we look at regions of the globe like the United States and the Middle East (and it’s also becoming common in Italy), the trend is to use disposable items with a napkin during lunch breaks, while in the evening the table is ‘dressed’ with a tablecloth. In Italy, there is the challenge to make the laundries, as well as the restaurants, to understand that abroad, there is only a tablecloth and napkin without the topper. Here, we only change the topper, which means the laundry has to make a significant investment without a reasonable return. In some cases, laundries charge restaurants a fixed fee to recover the cost of the tablecloth. This does not encourage restaurants to change, favouring the shortcut to disposables.

Abroad, the relationship between laundries and the food service industry is different because laundries do not rent out linen, but only provide washing services. The difference is not in who is making the purchasing, but in having an open-minded relationship between the parties. The inflexibility comes from the fact that in some areas of our country, laundries don’t have exclusivity, and this is only increasing the rigidity of the offer, penalizing the service. A laundry in the Netherlands, a few years ago, organized its operations by handling only 45×45 fabric napkins, which are 20% smaller than the standard 50×50 size, which means a lower rental price compared to the standard one. This offer was comparable to that of paper but with the advantages of fabric. The collaboration with this laundry led to the production of about 200.000 napkins per year. This was a laundry that handled only napkins, runners, and placemats, and their customers were restaurants, pubs, bars, and coffee shops that offered low-cost menus at lunchtime. I am convinced that a similar offer would work well also in Italy, achieving a balance of cost-effectiveness, practicality, and hygiene guarantee.”

“The use of paper in the food service industry has taken a significant share of the market. In my opinion,” says Andrea Perego, the General Manager of TESSITURA PEREGO, “we should focus on raising awareness in the food and catering sector about less impactful use of resources. There is much talk about ecological transition; let’s put it into practice, perhaps involving public and local authorities, asking them to use fiscal incentives to encourage restaurants towards increasingly virtuous behaviours. Circular economy, waste separation, reuse, recycling. The general goal is to encourage a reduction in generating waste and raise awareness among significant economic entities such as restaurants, hotels, bars, and coffee shops that disposable table linen has a negative impact on the environment. There are good practices and positive examples in this sense. The Tuscan municipalities of Scarperia e San Piero and Borgo San Lorenzo have offered a reduction in waste taxes to restaurants that reduce the use of disposable paper in favour of reusable textile materials. ut there are many other important examples, such as the initiative of 325 Italian municipalities that have adopted the “zero waste strategy”, always using a reward mechanism for the most exemplary businesses. The aim is to achieve more efficient waste collection in terms of quantity and quality.”

Hygiene and sanitisation

“When it comes to paper/fabric selection, I would like to start with an evaluation: can we reduce the impact on water associated with industrial production cycles?” With this question, Letizia Cimmino, the Managing Director of CIMMINO FORNITURE TESSILI, opens her response to our interview. “The use of durable goods means a reduction in water resources used for producing them, as the product’s lifespan determines indirectly the amount of water necessary for its manufacturing. In a specific comparison, textile tablecloths have a significantly longer useful life than the paper ones, which are disposable. Consequently, the water used to produce the fabric remains in circulation much longer than the water used to produce paper. The need to replace paper tablecloths after a single use obviously requires an immediate demand for water to produce new ones. Moreover, the use of high-quality water resources in the industry can be reduced through the reuse of process water, whether specifically related to production or the maintenance of the goods themselves.

Today, it is possible to significantly reduce the water footprint of the textile industry and industrial laundries through on-site purification systems that allow for water reuse, thereby reducing the need for the supply with highquality resources. So, it is evident that we can reduce the impact on water consumption for textile industrial uses! But again, let’s turn our attention to the obvious advantage of fabric over paper. Leaving aside the aesthetical factor: can we compare the elegance of an uncovered table or one covered with paper with a tablecloth-dressed table? What about hygiene? Think about the damp cloth used to clean the table in a restaurant, the mobile phones and keys we place on the table that often fall to the ground. On a table covered with fabric, these impacts are neutralized,” concludes Letizia Cimmino.

Read also

Laundry Laboratories

December 2025

Care and maintenance of technical garments: operating guidelines