Kitchen Scrubbers

The kitchen sponges I have been using for my whole life are properly plastic, I can't check online because the Tesco site doesn't state a material. But even if they are not plastic they are still wasteful. They come in a plastic film that can't be recycled and when they get icky they are thrown in the bin to go into landfill. Surely we can do better. 

I have seen Non-sponges or un-sponges for sale on some zero waste online stores, they don't look to complicated. I even found a little tutorial for making some (i forgot to save the link though), so lets have a go. 

The sponge is made up of 3 layers;

1) A scrubbing layer, I am using some cut up terry towels, I bought new one only because I want to keep using all the current ones I have.

2) Some wadding, from what I had been reading bamboo is the best option because has naturally antibacterial properties.

3) Lastly it needs a top, I am using some cute fabric scraps as it doesn't need to have any particular properties beyond surviving a hot laundry cycle.

I layered them with wadding on the bottom, then towel, then the cute scrap piece. The scrap piece is right side down, I did a silly and stitched the first one right side up and had to unpick it all.

Then I stitched most of the way round leaving one of the long sides 1/3 open as in the picture above.

Clip the corners and turn.

 

Hand Sew the opening closed.

Lastly a quick top stitch to keep it sitting flat and make it look nice and its done.

I am rather pleased with how they turned out. They look nice, soak up a nice amount of liquid, and where cheap and easy to make. 

So how much do they cost;

I bought 6 towels for £5.29, and one towel makes 10 scrubbers. So that is 9p per sponge.

The wadding was £3.75 for 50 x 110cm, I got 5 across the 50cm and should get 7 along the 110cm. So thats 11p. 

The scrap fabric I consider as a zero cost, its being recycled from old projects. 

So the total cost per sponge is 20p. The ones from Tesco are £1.20 for 4, which I would cut in half, so they are 15p each. So they are 5p more, take a little of my time to make, but once they are washed they start saving money. I know that there is the cost of more laundry but I still think I will be saving money from this change.

From a reducing waste point of view, there is some packaging involved in me getting the towels and wadding, it was sadly not recyclable, but it is a one off compared to repeated waste of the old sponges. The loose threads and unusable pieces of fabric have been added to the stuffing jar with all the other threads, ends and yarn tails to be used for toy or pillow stuffing.

What do you think?