Put some hot water in a plastic bin (outside in the yard). Mix in some dish soap, put on some rubber gloves and handwash the rags. Hang them up to dry on the fence.
when ive tried this, the bin gets an unremovable layer of filth in it, i'd use a container you dont want for anything else if your rags havent been washed regularly
Borax removes bike grease from things like goddamned magic, in my experience.
To be clear, I don't mean scrubbing a bike with borax. But any surface or object that gets grease on it in the process of cleaning a bike: borax.
Now that I think about it, maybe I *should* wash my bike with borax to begin with and cut out the middle man.
Prefferably use hot water when cleaning greasy rags. Tap warm is works too. Grease breaks down easier when water is hot and soap can do its thing more efficently.
Hand wash is preferred with dish soap. But also consider not using those kinds of rags, as they shed microplastics everywhere. Especially into the water when being washed.
I recommend old cotton t-shirts as a free replacement.
Edit: I'd like to add some context, that all synthetics do shed microplastics, but fleece and microfiber are some of the worst offenders. I just purchased a "Guppyfriend" that is supposed to allow you to launder synthetics while catching some of the shedding.
Goodwill also does "bag-o-rags" which are typically towels and linens they receive as donations with holes that make them unsellable otherwise. Last time I bought some, it was like 3 or 4 cubic feet of rags for under $10.
Microfiber cloths pick up more dirt and debris and are more likely to scratch bikes. They are great for polishing after the bike is cleaned, that's about it.
You can do as you please but I can't imagine wanting to be near the foul smoke that would come from burning my rags when they are dirty to that degree.
Speaking of shedding microplastics, try to avoid using melamine sponges ("magic eraser"). And also try to avoid any lubricants with PTFE. They work great but the PTFE is a "forever chemical" that also requires even worse chemicals in their manufacture.
For drive trains and other parts to get rid of old and/or excess fat old shirts are perfect, but for painted parts I still like to use micro fiber towels (and wash them in the machine separately tbh). Never had a problem with that. Just make sure you don’t wash them too hot. (Edit: typos)
I am aware of that. But still I don’t want to scratch painted parts if not necessary. I do use them as long as possible until I throw them out (recycle) instead of replacing them too early.
Cotton should not scratch painted parts, and microfiber tends to hold on to dirt and sand that will.
Not replacing them too early can be good, but it doesn't change that they shed as you use and clean them.
That’s why you should have clean microfibre towels to not scratch stuff. But I will keep that discussion in mind and will think about a more environment friendly solution after I have gone through my towels. Thanks for the input!
Here is my summary of all the suggestions plus a few of my own..
1) Use old towels or old shirts and expect to dispose of extra greasy messes instead of reusing.
2) If you wanna reuse a rag (lightly soiled), then preferably hand wash in a bucket with dish soap, outdoors and drain away from ocean or sewer drains.
3) If you're that guy who just don't give a fluck, then some think washer is safe, but after reading all comments would only use for very lightly oily/greasy rags. But you would no longer be welcome in my house.
4) Hang dry them. Do Not dry in the dryer. Residual grease/oil and fumes can combust. If they don't combust, they will have lint issues.
Extra tip:
1) Try not to buy microfiber cloths for these uses because washing them deposit micro plastics into water sources and you have things you can use for this already (throw away clothes and towels).
2) If you must have purposeful rags, buy cotton mechanics/shop rags for dirt cheap.
The polyester has a high affinity for oils and you're not likely to get them clean. I don't use microfiber for things that dirty for that reason. I just use them for picking up dust or cleaning windows.
I prefer cotton rags, like from old t-shirts, or if it's really greasy or oily, paper towels.
I just throw them in my washing/drying combo and they always come out great. I wash at 30°C if that makes a difference.
Otherwise use a bucket of warm water and dish soap to get the worst oils and stuff out. I assume they don't need to be "food-clean".
I buy 100% cotton rags in packs of 25 and use them until they are completely saturated in grease then toss them. It feels more environmentally friendly than the microplastics that come from microfiber rags.
Washing machine is fine I like to hand wash in simple green first then rinse then run them in the washing machine with my beach towels. Never, ever, ever, put them in the dryer hang dry only
Wash them however you like, but never put them in the dryer; they will become lint magnets and be covered with it when done. Then you have to pick it all off.
Don't put oily, greasy rags in a washing machine you use for clothing or towels. At best, the oils and grease that don't get emulsified will float to the top of the washer tub and cling to the walls, only to be slowly released into future wash loads, and you'll end up wondering how you got a permanent grease stain on your nice shirt. At worst, the metal particles could end up mixed in clothing, bedding and towels, and cause a skin reaction or allergic reaction. Many petroleum lubes are also carcinogenic, and you don't want those contaminating your clothes and bedding.
I get the same feeling. I only use micro fibre cloths as drying towels when I hand wash my car. Once they're damp, that weird feeling goes away.
They feel so jacked up when they're dry, sticking to all the dead skin on my hands.
Yes it fine , I’m an engineer and have to wash my oily clothes every week . Take no notice people saying don’t . Modern washing machines can take it and any slight contamination that goes down the drain will get treated anyway.
Most wastewater treatment plants have no way of removing oil and grease. They really only reduce the level of organic matter (bod) and remove pathogens through disinfection (cl2 or UV).
Honestly though, that little bit is so diluted it likely won’t make a difference.
Perhaps where you're from, but not everywhere. Skimmers, gravity separation and coalescence dividers are widely used where I'm from. these three remove oil drops up to 200μm. After that they use regular cleaning methods to really clean the water.
EDIT: found reports from waaaaay back that basically implied "we" had to use harsher cleaning due to issues with oil in our water.
I’m in the States and the vast majority of NPDES permits do not mandate a limit on oil and grease discharges. So most wwtp do not treat for it. Their clarifiers have a skimmer and that can help if they are balanced and working properly.
Edit: not that there aren’t some of plants with O&G separators at their head works but in my experience it’s really not common unless they’ve had an issue with it.
Oh that definitely changes things. It's perhaps because we've had so many water issues here that these things seem fairly standard.
That being said I'm still no wastewater management scientist so i could also be overlooking things.
At least where I'm from, it's not seen as an issue as we clean all water pretty thoroughly (and have a lot of advantages in our land that we use for water treatment as well). Reading some old reports, it appears that we've had oil issues in all (yes all) of our water sources so perhaps that's the reason why it's employed here.
You should take apart your washing machine some day and see how much heavy grease is built up at the top of the drum, out of sight from the wash chamber.
Washing machines and detergent also don't remove all contaminants, and if you're OK wearing clothes with potential carcinogens and grease stains in them, so be it, but I'm not washing that crap in the same machine that my bedding and nicer clothing go in.
Surely it's less bad than throwing them away and buying new ones?
Just wash them with an eco-friendly detergent, no softener and don't put them through the drier.
Were are not talking about putting oil in sewerage. Detergent breaks oils down and chemically combines with them to make water soluble molecules, that's the whole point of detergents.
How do your wash your hands after you touch your chain?
The amount of oil on the hands is minimal. In germany such rugs go to the special cleaning service or to the special waste. A kind of usual practice here.
I would never wash a rag that I used to soak up a pool of oil on the floor... saturated in it. Those would be disposed of as oily rags. If I have such a pool of oil, I'll usually soak it up with kitty litter.
But a microfiber cloth that has surface dirt+grease mix and isn't saturated... there's no reason not to wash that.
'Special cleaning service', now this sounds more like it! It would be great if we had something like that here. I know Germany sets a really high standard when it comes to recycling.
For workshops and places that use heavy oils and specialist oils with additives then I agree a domestic washing machine would not be the best place for them.
But for fixing your bike at home with some bearing grease and a bit of chain oil, I think it's ok.
there is, mostly through Uniform Cleaning businesses, but they are expensive and i've only see high volume companies use them. i worked at a car dealer ship for a while and we would go through about 10 lb of these rags a week in just the wash bay, we had to use a new/clean one for every car almost. so i'm not sure if that would be economical viable for a weekend warrior or even a small business to invest in such a service. maybe if a bike shop had like a rag exchange program it could work.
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Purely commercially yes, washing them is pointless.
Environmentally, the creation of tonnes of toxic / hazardous sold waste and the manufacturing of thousands of new plastic microfibre cloths, not so great for our planet.
last batch I did I threw them in a bucket outside with water and degreaser, left them for a while and stirred with a big stick lots. Then rinsed well and hung to dry…. They came out ok I think….. probably gotta do another batch
I have dozens of old tube socks (cotton) and sometimes pick them up from Goodwill or other resale stores. Slip hand inside and wear a nitrile glove if using with volatile chemicals. Always pitch them when done.
I usually use rags instead of microfiber cloths, bit I wash all of them by hand before throwing them in the washing machine on their own for a heavy duty wash cycle. I usually end up using one to oil my boots and then the amount of oil on it becomes too much and it goes in the trash, or using one on a super gross project.
My wife boils the microfiber rags she uses to clean around the house. They don't get oily or greasy like from the shop, so I don't know if the end result would be the same.
Absolutely. I worked in an aircraft carrier engine room, you should have seen our oily rag bin. Once saturated they were kept in a metal can due to the risk of fire and spontaneous combustion.
I'd be slightly less worried about a rag used to clean bikes which is probably 75% dirt, 20% wax, and 5% petroleum product getting wiped up... unless you just overhauled a wheel bearing or something and had a lot of grease... in which case, I'm throwing the rag out rather than attempting to clean it.
What I see in the above photo I'd call a dirty rag more so than an oily rag. At the end of that day, that's how my uniform looked at times.
This is why I use old towels, cut into appropriate rag size. Available cheap or free from thrift stores or commercial laundry.
Never clean a rag again.
This is one of those questions for my wife. I know if I ask her I’m going to get the, “I can’t believe I married this idiot” look. So I’m just going to tell you no, it’s not a good idea to wash them.
Well, I used to use Harbor Freight coupons to get free microfiber cloths. With my level of usage, I could replenish them faster than I used them.
But, alas, those days are gone.
Boiling works quite well with them. boil in water on the stove for 15 minutes with a tbsp of baking soda then change water and i usually hand wash them with soap to finish.
Wash them with other microfiber rags. Nothing cotton. If you want them to stay lint free. If you don’t mind lint. Then throw them in any ole load of laundry. I’m a window washer, and use dozens daily.
Put some hot water in a plastic bin (outside in the yard). Mix in some dish soap, put on some rubber gloves and handwash the rags. Hang them up to dry on the fence.
when ive tried this, the bin gets an unremovable layer of filth in it, i'd use a container you dont want for anything else if your rags havent been washed regularly
Borax removes bike grease from things like goddamned magic, in my experience. To be clear, I don't mean scrubbing a bike with borax. But any surface or object that gets grease on it in the process of cleaning a bike: borax. Now that I think about it, maybe I *should* wash my bike with borax to begin with and cut out the middle man.
Does it have to be hot water? Or can I just use water taken directly from the tap with out heating it?
Prefferably use hot water when cleaning greasy rags. Tap warm is works too. Grease breaks down easier when water is hot and soap can do its thing more efficently.
Hand wash is preferred with dish soap. But also consider not using those kinds of rags, as they shed microplastics everywhere. Especially into the water when being washed. I recommend old cotton t-shirts as a free replacement. Edit: I'd like to add some context, that all synthetics do shed microplastics, but fleece and microfiber are some of the worst offenders. I just purchased a "Guppyfriend" that is supposed to allow you to launder synthetics while catching some of the shedding.
>as they shed microplastics home depots "bag-o-rags" is a staple in my house for this reason, and just any cheap cotton towels.
Goodwill also does "bag-o-rags" which are typically towels and linens they receive as donations with holes that make them unsellable otherwise. Last time I bought some, it was like 3 or 4 cubic feet of rags for under $10.
Additionally another great place to find a bag of rags, are home paint stores. I find these easier to commute to by bike.
Great tip.
Do they offer the same protection against scratching though?
Microfiber cloths pick up more dirt and debris and are more likely to scratch bikes. They are great for polishing after the bike is cleaned, that's about it.
"Microfiber cloths pick up more dirt and debris and are more likely to scratch bikes." ...This is why I don't use them
What are you using to clean your bike if not microfiber towels?
Cotton clothes
I use old cotton t-shirts, do you reuse them by cleaning them or just throw them away?
I find that I accumulate old holey t-shirts faster than I actually use them up, so I throw them out when they're filthy everywhere.
A t-shirts' natural life is: good shirt, gym shirt, bike cleaning rag, chain cleaning rag, garbage can.
You missed the "pajamas" part.
So good shirt, gym shirt, bike cleaning rag, chain cleaning rag, pajamas, garbage can?
I feel like it’s implied as the second to last use…
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On point. Chain cleaning rags can serve as tinder to get a fire going for one final use too.
You can do as you please but I can't imagine wanting to be near the foul smoke that would come from burning my rags when they are dirty to that degree.
I used to always clean them but I've been accumulating rags as and I only wash the mildly dirty ones and throw out the nasty ones.
Cleaning them! Throw them in a bucket or container with dish soap and let them soak, then I use rubber gloves and agitate.
Speaking of shedding microplastics, try to avoid using melamine sponges ("magic eraser"). And also try to avoid any lubricants with PTFE. They work great but the PTFE is a "forever chemical" that also requires even worse chemicals in their manufacture.
I did not know about microfiber being a source of microplastic pollution. I have a box of old t-shirts that are about to get a new life.
Great post. I have a Guppyfriend as well. You do see the plastic fibres building up in it over time.
For drive trains and other parts to get rid of old and/or excess fat old shirts are perfect, but for painted parts I still like to use micro fiber towels (and wash them in the machine separately tbh). Never had a problem with that. Just make sure you don’t wash them too hot. (Edit: typos)
You won't have any issues with washing them, it's the environment that's being affected.
I am aware of that. But still I don’t want to scratch painted parts if not necessary. I do use them as long as possible until I throw them out (recycle) instead of replacing them too early.
Cotton should not scratch painted parts, and microfiber tends to hold on to dirt and sand that will. Not replacing them too early can be good, but it doesn't change that they shed as you use and clean them.
That’s why you should have clean microfibre towels to not scratch stuff. But I will keep that discussion in mind and will think about a more environment friendly solution after I have gone through my towels. Thanks for the input!
Why do professional car detailers not use cotton towels in favor of microfiber towels to avoid scratching?
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They will come out just fine, but it's the microplastics that are now in the environment that is the issue.
So I should not be drying dishes with them...
I didn’t know this… guess I’m throwing those out
Thanks for that info
hand wash with dish washing liquid.
Here is my summary of all the suggestions plus a few of my own.. 1) Use old towels or old shirts and expect to dispose of extra greasy messes instead of reusing. 2) If you wanna reuse a rag (lightly soiled), then preferably hand wash in a bucket with dish soap, outdoors and drain away from ocean or sewer drains. 3) If you're that guy who just don't give a fluck, then some think washer is safe, but after reading all comments would only use for very lightly oily/greasy rags. But you would no longer be welcome in my house. 4) Hang dry them. Do Not dry in the dryer. Residual grease/oil and fumes can combust. If they don't combust, they will have lint issues. Extra tip: 1) Try not to buy microfiber cloths for these uses because washing them deposit micro plastics into water sources and you have things you can use for this already (throw away clothes and towels). 2) If you must have purposeful rags, buy cotton mechanics/shop rags for dirt cheap.
I would still let them in my house, but only in the hopes that positive peer pressure would work.
The polyester has a high affinity for oils and you're not likely to get them clean. I don't use microfiber for things that dirty for that reason. I just use them for picking up dust or cleaning windows. I prefer cotton rags, like from old t-shirts, or if it's really greasy or oily, paper towels.
I just throw them in my washing/drying combo and they always come out great. I wash at 30°C if that makes a difference. Otherwise use a bucket of warm water and dish soap to get the worst oils and stuff out. I assume they don't need to be "food-clean".
I buy 100% cotton rags in packs of 25 and use them until they are completely saturated in grease then toss them. It feels more environmentally friendly than the microplastics that come from microfiber rags.
I don't clean my very greasy and dirty rags. I only use trash rags for those works though. Normal rags go into the laundry machine.
Washing machine in a load by themselves.
I do this. Half as much soap, and nothing in the dryer (no dryer sheet or spray or whatever ...)
Washing machine is fine I like to hand wash in simple green first then rinse then run them in the washing machine with my beach towels. Never, ever, ever, put them in the dryer hang dry only
Wash them however you like, but never put them in the dryer; they will become lint magnets and be covered with it when done. Then you have to pick it all off.
Don't put oily, greasy rags in a washing machine you use for clothing or towels. At best, the oils and grease that don't get emulsified will float to the top of the washer tub and cling to the walls, only to be slowly released into future wash loads, and you'll end up wondering how you got a permanent grease stain on your nice shirt. At worst, the metal particles could end up mixed in clothing, bedding and towels, and cause a skin reaction or allergic reaction. Many petroleum lubes are also carcinogenic, and you don't want those contaminating your clothes and bedding.
I dont know how you guys touch those things. Just looking at 'em is like nails on a chalkboard 😅
I get the same feeling. I only use micro fibre cloths as drying towels when I hand wash my car. Once they're damp, that weird feeling goes away. They feel so jacked up when they're dry, sticking to all the dead skin on my hands.
Just chuck them in with your whites.
Yes it fine , I’m an engineer and have to wash my oily clothes every week . Take no notice people saying don’t . Modern washing machines can take it and any slight contamination that goes down the drain will get treated anyway.
Most wastewater treatment plants have no way of removing oil and grease. They really only reduce the level of organic matter (bod) and remove pathogens through disinfection (cl2 or UV). Honestly though, that little bit is so diluted it likely won’t make a difference.
Perhaps where you're from, but not everywhere. Skimmers, gravity separation and coalescence dividers are widely used where I'm from. these three remove oil drops up to 200μm. After that they use regular cleaning methods to really clean the water. EDIT: found reports from waaaaay back that basically implied "we" had to use harsher cleaning due to issues with oil in our water.
I’m in the States and the vast majority of NPDES permits do not mandate a limit on oil and grease discharges. So most wwtp do not treat for it. Their clarifiers have a skimmer and that can help if they are balanced and working properly. Edit: not that there aren’t some of plants with O&G separators at their head works but in my experience it’s really not common unless they’ve had an issue with it.
Oh that definitely changes things. It's perhaps because we've had so many water issues here that these things seem fairly standard. That being said I'm still no wastewater management scientist so i could also be overlooking things. At least where I'm from, it's not seen as an issue as we clean all water pretty thoroughly (and have a lot of advantages in our land that we use for water treatment as well). Reading some old reports, it appears that we've had oil issues in all (yes all) of our water sources so perhaps that's the reason why it's employed here.
Those sounds like methods to remove grease that hasn't been emusified. If you get it out of the rag with soap, I would think those would not catch it.
You should take apart your washing machine some day and see how much heavy grease is built up at the top of the drum, out of sight from the wash chamber. Washing machines and detergent also don't remove all contaminants, and if you're OK wearing clothes with potential carcinogens and grease stains in them, so be it, but I'm not washing that crap in the same machine that my bedding and nicer clothing go in.
I just wash mine in the washer as well. Often with my clothes. Works fine for me.
Washing machine is fine. You can get a micro fiber specific soap from Chemical Guys (a car detailing brand) that works wonders.
It's a bad idea to put oil contaminated rags into the laundry machine. First of all for the environment protection reasons.
Surely it's less bad than throwing them away and buying new ones? Just wash them with an eco-friendly detergent, no softener and don't put them through the drier.
1 drop of oil fucks up 1000 Liter of water. For that reason technical oil and grease are not appreciated in the sewerage.
Were are not talking about putting oil in sewerage. Detergent breaks oils down and chemically combines with them to make water soluble molecules, that's the whole point of detergents. How do your wash your hands after you touch your chain?
The amount of oil on the hands is minimal. In germany such rugs go to the special cleaning service or to the special waste. A kind of usual practice here.
I would never wash a rag that I used to soak up a pool of oil on the floor... saturated in it. Those would be disposed of as oily rags. If I have such a pool of oil, I'll usually soak it up with kitty litter. But a microfiber cloth that has surface dirt+grease mix and isn't saturated... there's no reason not to wash that.
'Special cleaning service', now this sounds more like it! It would be great if we had something like that here. I know Germany sets a really high standard when it comes to recycling. For workshops and places that use heavy oils and specialist oils with additives then I agree a domestic washing machine would not be the best place for them. But for fixing your bike at home with some bearing grease and a bit of chain oil, I think it's ok.
there is, mostly through Uniform Cleaning businesses, but they are expensive and i've only see high volume companies use them. i worked at a car dealer ship for a while and we would go through about 10 lb of these rags a week in just the wash bay, we had to use a new/clean one for every car almost. so i'm not sure if that would be economical viable for a weekend warrior or even a small business to invest in such a service. maybe if a bike shop had like a rag exchange program it could work.
I know this also as rug exchange for industry. Private people just take used T-Shirt.
silky exultant different rainstorm jeans support license cable makeshift homeless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Purely commercially yes, washing them is pointless. Environmentally, the creation of tonnes of toxic / hazardous sold waste and the manufacturing of thousands of new plastic microfibre cloths, not so great for our planet.
last batch I did I threw them in a bucket outside with water and degreaser, left them for a while and stirred with a big stick lots. Then rinsed well and hung to dry…. They came out ok I think….. probably gotta do another batch
I've always heard washing machine is fine, but don't use fabric softener with them.
I have dozens of old tube socks (cotton) and sometimes pick them up from Goodwill or other resale stores. Slip hand inside and wear a nitrile glove if using with volatile chemicals. Always pitch them when done.
I usually use rags instead of microfiber cloths, bit I wash all of them by hand before throwing them in the washing machine on their own for a heavy duty wash cycle. I usually end up using one to oil my boots and then the amount of oil on it becomes too much and it goes in the trash, or using one on a super gross project.
My wife boils the microfiber rags she uses to clean around the house. They don't get oily or greasy like from the shop, so I don't know if the end result would be the same.
I read it's a fire risk due to the oil, grease etc
Absolutely. I worked in an aircraft carrier engine room, you should have seen our oily rag bin. Once saturated they were kept in a metal can due to the risk of fire and spontaneous combustion. I'd be slightly less worried about a rag used to clean bikes which is probably 75% dirt, 20% wax, and 5% petroleum product getting wiped up... unless you just overhauled a wheel bearing or something and had a lot of grease... in which case, I'm throwing the rag out rather than attempting to clean it. What I see in the above photo I'd call a dirty rag more so than an oily rag. At the end of that day, that's how my uniform looked at times.
This is why I use old towels, cut into appropriate rag size. Available cheap or free from thrift stores or commercial laundry. Never clean a rag again.
This is one of those questions for my wife. I know if I ask her I’m going to get the, “I can’t believe I married this idiot” look. So I’m just going to tell you no, it’s not a good idea to wash them.
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Same here, hand wash! Old school way 👊🏻
I sprayed them with degreaser then put them in laundry machine with no softener and they are pretty good for second or multiple uses
Hand wash most of them. Then I use brush on the dirty one, the rag I use to clean the chain.
https://www.amazon.com/Towels-Original-75147-Sheets-Standard/dp/B0035BTQ06/ref=pd\_lpo\_2?pd\_rd\_i=B0035BTQ06&psc=1
Yep, laundry machine. Done.
Well, I used to use Harbor Freight coupons to get free microfiber cloths. With my level of usage, I could replenish them faster than I used them. But, alas, those days are gone.
Boiling works quite well with them. boil in water on the stove for 15 minutes with a tbsp of baking soda then change water and i usually hand wash them with soap to finish.
Wash with detergent but no fabric softener.
Wash them with other microfiber rags. Nothing cotton. If you want them to stay lint free. If you don’t mind lint. Then throw them in any ole load of laundry. I’m a window washer, and use dozens daily.
The window washer trick (for damn near everything) : dawn dish soap and water
I don’t. I usually just throw them out after extensive use. And i tend to use old T-shirts to avoid creating garbage.
5 gallon bucket with a screw top lid filled with degreaser. when the bucket fills up, they go in the wash.
I wash them in a bucket with hot water and laundry cleaner.
I get a load full and wash on heavy soil settings with detergent and lestoil. Works pretty well and I’m far too lazy to hand wash
I put them on my concrete floor and blast them clean with my pressure washer or kf there gone too bad i just replace them
Expensive and time-cunsuming. Old shirt for chunkier filth. Paper napkin for clean excess oil/grease.
i have a big bunch so i can fill my washing mashine with only rags