Ok well I had a really bad experience with a piece of aspen stuck up&down ways in my pastel's mouth one day and often minor snake surgery we dont use aspen. Might have been a one time thing but....so I switched to very very fine pine shavings ( which no one has mentioned yet...are they bad too?) And they have worked great!! I have a smallish collection of 21 kids.
I have used papertowels off and on but it seemed like I was cleaning tubs every 3 days! It has been way easier to spot clean daily and then completely dump tubs one a month at our house...And of course hatchlings get paper till they move to the rack...