Dish Scrubbers – A Quick and Easy Eco Friendly Craft

Yay! I’m finally getting a crafting post up! I’ve been meaning to write about these dish scrubbers for a while now, and today is the day! I’ll go into a bit more detail about why it took so long later. But let me just say, these dish scrubber pads are one of my favorite eco-friendly crafts! They’re quick and easy to make, cut down on waste, and I think they are better than anything store-bought.

Yarn Based Dish Scrubbers are the Best!

I’ve been making dish scrubbers for a few years now and I love them! They are a great way to use up yarn remnants as well as being very durable and reusable. In fact, some of the scrubby pads in the picture below have been in use for over five years now, and they’re still in great condition. I also like them for sanitation reasons too. I’ve made a bunch of them so I can use a fresh scrubber every day. They are machine washable so you just throw them in with a towel load to clean them. Better yet, no more foam sponges or plastic scrubbers going in the trash!

Why such a simple dish scrubber pattern took so long to write

The pattern itself is super simple, it’s the materials that took a while. I’ve always made these scrubbers using scrubby yarn (or something similar) because it adds a good scrubbing element to the pad. The problem is that these types of yarns (or at least the ones I was using) are made with polyester. The more I’ve learned about polyester and plastics, the more I’ve had to rethink whether to use this type of yarn.

Polyester is a synthetic petroleum-based material classed as plastic. It is also one of the major contributors to microfiber pollution. But I love these scrubber pads 🙁 so I started looking for a natural fiber alternative. So far, I’ve found the 100% cotton Scrub Off yarn by Lily Sugar’n Cream. It works well for this pattern and for washing dishes but I haven’t had much time to test its durability.

Going Plastic-Free comes with a lot of decisions

This project brings up another issue I keep running into, especially now that I’m trying to be more intentional about the products I use. What do I do with the plastics that are already in my possession? Let’s take the scrubber pads for example, does the fact that they are a polyester negate the good they have done – and are doing – by reducing the plastic waste from other sources?

This is why I wanted to focus on single-use plastics for my plastic-free challenges. There are just so many factors to weigh and consider regarding durable plastics and synthetic fabrics. And I’m not at a point in this journey yet to really sort my thoughts out on the matter.

About the Dish Scrubber Pattern

Back to the pattern. As stated, my previous scrubbers were made using polyester-based scrubby yarn. I can attest to their cleaning ability and durability since I’m still using those scrubbers 5 years later with no major signs of wear. I plan to keep using these pads, but from now on I will make future dish scrubbers with natural fiber yarns. The pattern below uses the 100% cotton yarn I found by Lily Sugar’n Cream that I just started using. They clean as well as the other scrubbers but it will take about a year to tell how well they hold up.

I’m a knitter (nothing against crochet, I just don’t know it) so this is a knit pattern. But you can easily find crochet patterns, along with other knit scrubber patterns, on Yarnspirations and Ravelry.