The fight against bad smells in the kitchen takes a strange turn when toilet paper stored in the fridge is mixed in. When you open the fridge, you often find strong, musty smells that aren’t coming from the food but from the fridge itself. The magic of absorbent properties comes into play: toilet paper, which is made to quickly soak up moisture, turns out to be an unlikely but useful friend in the fight against these lingering smells.

The main cause of persistent fridge smells is high internal humidity, which makes a perfect environment for germs and mold to grow. Putting a clean roll of toilet paper in the fridge will soak up the extra wetness and smelly particles, making the fridge a cleaner place overall. The extra benefit? It saves people money and doesn’t harm the earth, so they don’t have to buy expensive products to get rid of smells.

If you want to get rid of smells even better, toilet paper and baking soda work great together. Putting a box of baking soda next to the toilet paper makes the two of them work together better to keep the fridge smelling good. For smells that won’t go away, putting a baking soda paste right on the toilet paper roll makes it absorb even more.

Putting toilet paper in the fridge, which might seem like an odd thing to do, turns out to be a simple but effective way to get rid of smells you don’t want. Using toilet paper’s natural ability to soak up liquids is the idea behind this answer, which is both cheap and good for the environment. For that reason, the next time your fridge gives off a bad smell, think about using toilet paper as an easy and quick way to make it smell better.