Tissues or hankies: Which is less gross?

The idea of keeping a small cloth harbouring your mucus, sweat and germs tucked up your sleeve or in your pocket might repulse many, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.

But there are still avid users and collectors of handkerchiefs, whether it be older people who are just used to having hankies on hand or the younger generation being mindful of the environment.

Ethically Kate founder Kate Hall says the reaction online to her box of ready-to-use hankies has been mixed, with some reminiscing their grandparents and others grossed out.

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“No one was open for thinking about the power of hot soapy water and what our washing machine can do these days," she says.

Beyond our grandparents, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when and how hankies came into being but their use has been traced by researchers back to ancient civilisations such as China and Egypt.

Over time, they evolved in what they were used for before slowly falling out of fashion when we got the luxury of tissues, with the invention of Kleenex in 1924.

Hall says hankies are not only softer on the nose and a money-saver, but they’re meaningful if you’ve got a set passed on like she does from her husband’s grandparents.

“Often with memories and heirlooms that get passed on, we don't actually use them much. We put them in a cabinet like the glass china but something like this is a really cool constant reminder.”

The major drawcard for Hall is that their reusable natures means they don't add to landfill waste.

“Reusables being so much better [than tissues], even though people say, ‘oh, that takes energy to wash them’ and stuff like that, disposables still take more energy and more water and stuff to create,” Hall says.

In 2012, US company Ecosystem Analytics found hankies had five to seven times greater environmental impact than tissues. However, the biggest impacts were seen for production rather than using or disposing of them.

Clinical microbiologist Sally Roberts says one should consider the inconvenience and inequity of tissues too.

“It's pretty tough to be a perfect mother and have one tissue for that child, one for that child, and all those sorts of things, and you're often trying to catch them in transit as they go past at speed,” Roberts says.

“Buying packets of tissues is not cheap, and it's tough on large families. It's just an added budget item for them, to make sure everyone's got pockets of tissues everywhere.”

If you’re sick, it will potentially contain infectious viral particles which can survive on it up to 24 hours, Roberts says. But the same applies to tissues.

“I think that most virus is probably going to be transmitted by people who are coughing and sneezing and not using a handkerchief at all,” says University of Auckland infectious disease physician Mark Thomas.

"Or the handkerchief gets there too slow to actually catch the mucus that's expelled with the cough or the sneeze.”

Both experts say tissues may be advantageous if you are disposing of them immediately after use and washing your hands, but often people leave them lying around or put them back in their pockets, which means they can be just as bad as hankies.

“You put it in your nice warm pocket, and that just allows the virus to survive a bit better." Roberts says. 

"It's got a nice little snot around it, so nice bit of saliva or sort of respiratory secretion to keep it moist and protected.”

If we don't wash our hands, we can become the main source of ongoing transmission, not the snotty hanky or tissue in the pocket, Roberts says.

“In the perfect world, we'd all have a box of tissues that magically got replaced when it was emptied, and there'd be somewhere for us to dispose of them, and at the same time, beside it, somewhere to do hand hygiene. But there isn't. So, I suppose, at the end of the day, tissues and hankies are good at reducing dispersal.”

Hall suggests having heaps on hand if you’re sick (you can get them cheap at op shops) so you’re not using it an “unhygienic amount of times”, and then chucking them in a bag or laundry basket.

She says organic cotton may be better than silk which is not as durable or absorbent.

Roberts, who used hankies before she lost too many, recommends throwing them in a Ziploc bag once they get moist from use, and washing and drying your hands.

A normal hot washing cycle, which is about 55 degrees, with some detergent and a rinse or two would break down the virus on the hanky, she says.

“UV [ultraviolet light] is particularly good at killing virus.

“Then, if they're obsessional like me, they would have ironed them. So, not much has survived.”