How to Recycle Old Towels (courtesy of MichelleKaufamann.com)

Millions of tons of textile waste ends up in our landfills every year – even though there are great ways to recycle! Charitable organizations are a wonderful place to send your old clothes, your old linens, your old rugs. But, sometimes those old towels that end up in the back of our linen closet are not so donation-worthy! So, here’s a beautiful way that you can transform those old towels into something luxurious, like this bath rug!

I just love this, because this is a simple, green-it-yourself project that only requires your old bath towels or beach towels – you could even do t-shirts – and, a gridded matting.

This matting you can get at almost any fabric store. You just simply choose the size that you’re gonna want your rug to be, based on your bath dimensions. For me, I’m making it about 18 inches by 2 feet. That’s what’s gonna fit best outside of my shower.

Then, you take your towels, and hopefully you washed them! And, cut them into strips. You want to make the strips about ¾ of an inch wide – about the dimensions, the width of your finger.

Then, once you have the strip made, make it into lengths of about 5 to 6 inches. For this rug, it’s probably gonna take me 2 or 3 old bath towels.

Then, once you have all of your strips, you can start tying them into the grid. You just pull it through and simply tie a knot! You just keep on tying until you have finished the grid.

For the rug that I already finished, you can see on the back that I wasn’t super precious about it. I skipped some squares, especially when a good part of the movie was happening! But, it still makes a really dense, super-soft, really cushy rug that’s lovely for when I’m coming out of the bathtub or the shower. Puts me in a good mood as a way to start the day!

Thanks so much for watching this Green-It-Yourself project. I’m Michelle Kaufamann, helping you to let the green in today and every day!

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