re-usable butt towels and kitchen wipes

When I stayed at Kanthaus in 2022, I noticed their box of small "butt towels" cut from old clothes in the bathroom; these machine-washable replacements save a lot of toilet paper and I always wanted to make my own.

We had some old sheets and shirts beyond use or donation lying around, and instead of throwing it out, my girlfriend cut them up into two sizes: smaller ones as a toilet paper substitute, and larger for cleaning up kitchen counters or as tissue paper; a simple, cost-effective, and beautiful way to reduce our usage of disposable cleaning paper.

Cut sheets lose threads around the edges in the dryer, so I hang dry them now, or since our apartment is dry it's possible to just leave them in a stack anyway; cotton shirts don't have this issue.


That's just one idea from this resourceful co-living collective. Here are some others:

shoe holders on a wall
keeping only one kind of jar and lid, with a sample to test if it fits

cutlery organized into simple cups
communal closets labeled by clothing type and size