I have a love-hate relationship with convenience cleaning items. You know what I'm talking about: Swiffer-like mops, cleaning wipes, those fluffy dusters...they're nice and all, but they encourage me to throw away more and waste more than I like. Case in point, my swiffer-like mop uses throw away pads. I don't feel comfortable using one of those throw away pads more than, uh, once. Maybe twice if the area I'm mopping isn't too dirty. But they get so gross. So I'm chucking out at least one pad a week, if not two (I don't mop that often, okay?? better things to do, man). It may not seem like a lot, but if a pack of those things is, oh I don't know, $3, that's $12 a month, $144 a year. I could do way better things with $144, not to mention the whole Filling of the Landfill thing.

So I finally got fed up today and crafted my own reusuable pads made from microfiber towels. It was pretty easy, I traced around the existing pad first. After cutting that out, I also cut out a rectangle for the center of the pad. I zigzagged the center strip in place, then serged around the outside.


Look at that! They look almost the same, but I can wash them.




See? Look at how that fits on the mop so nicely.

Making three of these took me about 20 minutes. The only issue I seemed to have was that the pad slips a bit while mopping. If I was mopping a huge kitchen or my old dining room or something, it might be a problem I'd have to troubleshoot. But with what I mop in our apartment, it works just fine. I don't think you'd even need a serger, you could just zigzag around all the edges.

I know what you're thinking. You're not crafty enough to make these. You don't have the time. There's no shame in not being crafty! Goodness knows I get busy too. There are bunches of awesome work at home moms who make this kind of thing too and sell them. Check out hyenacart.com or etsy.com for vendors. If you buy from WAHMs, you're supporting someone else's dream of staying at home with her children. AND you're not throwing something away all the time. I think everyone wins with a washable, reusable swiffer-like mopping pad.

Now if I could shake my dependance on those darn cleaning wipes. I love those things. Do you have anything that you regularly throw away that could be substituted with something reuseable?