Reducing Waste - Swiffer Sweepers

To continue in my series of posts on reducing waste, I'd like to talk about my little Swiffer Sweeper.  Despite my usual aversion to disposable products, I did succumb and buy a sweeper a few years ago.  The power of advertising, I guess.  I liked that it did a quick job of mopping the floor, although not as thorough as getting down on your hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water, of course.  I got through the first box of disposable cloths that go with the sweeper, and balked at buying replacements.  Cheapness reigns supreme!  I was also a little turned off by the waste of throwing away those cloths.  You have to understand, I have five kids, so washing the floor isn't always a weekly chore.  Sometimes it's daily, especially if someone drips something sweet and sticky across the floor.  (Names will not be mentioned.)

My little sweeper sat in a corner of the broom closet feeling abandoned and forlorn for quite a while, while I returned to my previous method of washing the floor.  It haunted me, though, this impulse buy of mine.  What to do with it, I wondered?  There must be some way to adapt the sweeper in a more economical, less wasteful way. 

One day as I was going through a drawer full of cleaning cloths, I had a lightbulb moment.  I picked up a j-cloth, and thought, this looks a lot like those throwaway cloths!  I grabbed my old sweeper and attached the j-cloth (folded in half), and it worked like a charm.  I then threw the j-cloth in the laundry, and washed it - ta da!  Re-usable sweeper cloths!  Since then I have used the sweeper a lot more for a quick mop through the kitchen, and I'm doing it guilt free with no waste.