The year after I graduated from college, I lived in a house in Los Angeles with 6 of my friends. Yes, it was a little bit crazy. Seven women in one house, all on  very different and very busy schedules. I think we managed to all have dinner together once that whole year. We had hopes that it would happen more, but life just took over.

Given how impossible it was for us all to even be together, you can imagine how hard it was to make sure cleaning happened. We had our chore rotation on a nice little index card that we kept on the fridge, but we mostly forgot that it was there. Until, of course, when someone complained. It quickly became clear who the messy and clean ones of the house were. I think we were about split even, me being on the clean side of the line.

In a household where time was short and we just wanted to make sure the minimal cleaning was done, the Swiffer was a godsend. The disposable dry pads made it so easy. You just stuck it on, swept up, and tossed the pad in the garbage. If we had a mop that required being soaked in soapy water and rung out to dry, I almost guarantee you that our floors  would have never gotten cleaned.

These days though, I do whatever I can to limit the amount of things we throw into the trash. Even though garbage disappears from our home as quickly as the garbage truck takes it away, it doesn’t go away as easily as that from the dump it goes to. Swiffer wet or dry pads, in particular, aren’t going to just dissolve into the ground. They’re going to stick around for a very long time.

The solution for now? Creating a reusable pad that I can throw in the wash after each use and use over, and over again. It turned out to be a cinch to make and about $10.

On a recent trip to Target, I picked up a micro-fiber cleaning pad and Velcro with adhesive backing. I happened to pick up the Clorox brand, but there were a few other brand options, all of which would have worked.

Using a sharp pair of scissors, I cut 4 pieces of the hook side of the Velcro, each 2 inches long. I took off the adhesive backing and stuck them on the bottom of my Swiffer. The micro-fiber pad sticks right to this, you don’t even need the loop side of the Velcro.

The micro-fiber pad is a little large, so I also cut 2, 1-inch long pieces of Velcro and attached them to the top of the Swiffer. I fold the hanging sides of the micro-fiber pad onto the Velcro pieces.

I took this baby for a test drive as soon as I put it together. It works great! With a crawling baby girl who is constantly putting things in her mouth off the ground, I’m constantly cleaning our floors. I think I might actually buy another micro-fiber or two to rotate into the wash.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.