Abbey Ryan
While many of us do a good job of keeping our homes clean, we often forget to take care of the items we actually use to clean them. This is particularly true of your kitchen sponge. As it turns out, you’re probably not cleaning it enough.
Cleaning your kitchen sponge is an essential step in maintaining a sanitized and hygienic environment, and you should be disinfecting it every other day at a minimum.
Your sponge needs to be cleaned so often because it’s basically a playground for bacteria. Your kitchen could be home to multiple pathogens including e.coli and salmonella. Just think of all of the surfaces where raw meat might have touched! It’s your sponge’s job (and a disinfectant’s) to clean those messes up, and of course, without cleaning your sponge, they’ll stick around.
If that bacteria does just sit there, you’ll end up cross-contaminating your entire kitchen and spreading germs and potential illness. The answer to this problem is much more frequent sponge-cleaning than you probably thought.
Scotch-Brite Heavy Duty Scrub Sponges
This pack of recyclable sponges is dishwasher safe and reusable, so they will work hard and last long.
$8.82 
$9.79 Save 10%
When the time comes to clean your kitchen sponge, there are a few methods but the easiest one is to simply stick it in your dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher, add 3/4 cup of chlorine bleach to a gallon of hot water and let the sponges soak for five minutes. Wring them out and allow them to air dry on a rack to reduce bacterial growth.
Once you’ve had a sponge for two weeks, it’s time to completely toss it for a new one—even if you’ve been diligent about cleaning it.
So if you’ve got a crusty sponge in your kitchen, it’s time to toss it and invest in a new set—just be sure to clean these.
