The problem with using family cloth lies in what happens after you... you know. Obviously you wash them, but do you race straight from the bathroom to the laundry room? Or do you just throw the cloth in the hamper? Same hamper as the rest of your laundry, or a separate container? However you segregate things, cross-contamination is going to be a problem. Whether you use your cloths for both purposes, or just for pee, human waste products are full of germs that can infect anything they come into contact with, including your hands.

Kelly Reynolds, a public health researcher at the University of Arizona, told USA Today that throwing the cloths in the washing machine won't solve the problem: "When you wash these cloths you transfer these germs to the entire load of laundry, even subsequent loads." The pathogens, she says, can only be killed by bleach and water heated to a temperature higher than most washing machines can provide. In fact, the water and the energy required to properly sanitize these soiled cloths makes using them less eco-friendly than flushing easily biodegradable toilet paper.

It looks like family cloths are no sustainable solution for our toilet paper dilemma, although Lifehacker commenters suggest that such a product could be appropriate if used for drying off after using a bidet. For those of us still bidet-less, however, we make this desperate plea: whoever's hogging all the TP, please leave some for us.