I have two kids out of diapers now, and one of the best things about that is that I can use all their old pre-folds for this stuff. My mom still uses my cloth diapers to clean with (33 years old), so that shows you how tough these things are.
I occasionally use one paper towel to reseason my cast iron after usage. Same thing with draining bacon or fried stuff. Though I think you may find that coated cooling rack for baking works even better for draining things like fried chicken. Just stick it over a baking sheet and you have grease free food that still stays crispy. You shouldn't have an issue with a fire in the washing machine, that would probably be the dryer, and you should be line drying anyways :). At any rate, I bought a pack of paper towels 2 years ago at costco, and I still have most of them.
Instead of keeping your bread in plastic, sew up some bread bags out of cheap cotton. I'm all thumbs on the sewing machine and mine still look great. Easy project that should only cost you 5-10 dollars in fabric.
Also, don't forget about paper bags for draining things. Forgo the $.05 savings every once in a while and get a paper bag. I use them to start the charcoal in my charcoal chimney, drain certain fried foods like homemade chips. And the smaller lunch sized ones are perfect for popping your own popcorn in the microwave. That's a huge savings right there, and you get to forgo all the bpa crap coated on the inside of microwave popcorn bags.