I was listening to the radio today and heard you should replace your dish sponge once a week . It is the most filthy item in your household . Dirtier than a toilet . I admit I don’t replace them once a week . Let’s just say more than a week for me . Do you replace your dish sponge once a week ? I never knew.
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My wife puts ours through a turn in the microwave every other day, but I don’t think it’s replaced weekly. We’re still alive.
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No, of course not. I keep sponges until they cease to function as sponges.
You don’t know my household very well.
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I feel the same on your comments . I survived this long .
My housecleaner insists on throwing out my old dish sponges every time she cleans (the usual frequency is every two weeks). I find this ridiculous, and have taken to hiding the old sponge and putting a brand-new one on the sink before she comes, so she won’t throw it away. Then when she’s gone, I take the old sponge back out and keep using it.
I drive my sponges into the ground just like my cars. Neither practice has ever threatened my health. If you ask me, it’s a scam perpetrated by the sponge manufacturers.
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I put them through the dishwasher each time I run it, every 3-4 days. I never use a sponge for cleaning up stuff like chicken blood, etc. - I use a paper towel and follow it with a disposable bleach wipe. So I feel my sponges are reasonably hygenic.
Slightly off topic but I cut my sponges in half. They fit my hand better, are easier to store and are big enough to get the job done.
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Simple solution. Just let them dry out between uses, perhaps under the sun. No more germ issues.
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Same here.
This looks like better solution, but also for better results, heat it up often in boiling water and let them dry.
Though, I seldom heat them up, just dry them.
Anyway, like everybody says, we are still alive and kicking.
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Me too. I had assumed that this was normal procedure - but then my kitchen hygiene procedures would see me quickly closed down by Environmental Health if I were a restaurant.
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I’m in the same camp with the sponge. If I remember I’ll throw it in when I use the dishwasher. I also use a kitchen/bar wash cloth for wiping off counters (usually stays pretty dry) and that goes in the washing machine every couple of days. A paper towel is used for sloppy messes.
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A sponge can be sanitized easily in the dishwasher, if you use a heated drying cycle or by washing in hot soapy tap water with a little bleach added.
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This is some dumb shit. I don’t know how people got convinced that a cleaning tool that regularly spends time being in flowing soapy hot water then gets dried can get that dirty. If you’re really that paranoid the dishwasher or microwave will kill essentially 100% of the “filth” anyway. I will confidently clean my toilet with my sponge and use it for dishes following a good scrub/rinse in hot soapy water.
Even if there was any appreciable “filth” on your sponge, the final rinse under running water + drying will get rid of anything worth talking about.
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I use microfiber cloths with mesh backs & cycle them into the laundry once a week. When making tea or coffee I reserve some boiling water and give them a good scalding (in cool weather).
Yippee for the dishwasher method. Ditto paper towels and blood. Followed by a spritz of vinegar.
Edited to add:
In other news, haven’t I read that doctors say the toilet issue is a red herring because every baby, every dog, every little old lady, every newsstand, every last damn leaf of grass – everything, essentially, is covered in caca? A nd still we survive. Gotta believe the butcher’s products we handle in the kitchen are much worse than any of the brews we deposit in the porcelain throne. . .
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Remind me never to eat at your house!
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I use a dish cloth rather than a dish sponge, and throw it in the wash every week.
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I also clean my butthole with my hands every day… should I be boiling them after? Throw them out? 
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Talking about buttholes, my cat licks his ass and afterwards he is eating his food, he eats whatever he could find on the ground outdoors…at times I spot him drinking water from the saucer of flower pots, and he never seems to be sick. I wonder at times why our immunity system isn’t as strong as theirs.
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Let’s just put it this way, if my dish sponges could vote, their first election might have been Carter / Reagan. Uggghhhh…not only is age of dish sponges a point of contention for me, so it leaving sponges in a dirty sink. Ugghhhhhhhhh…I do frequently microwave them. (I really don’t know how old our sponges are, but I know they aren’t changed weekly that’s for dam sure)
Do you use a sponge for washing dishes or a dish cloth?
I wash with a dish cloth. The sponge is used for cleaning the counter, sink, stovetop and fridge shelves. If scouring powder is needed on a pot then I use a sponge.
The dish cloth is rinsed well and left unfolded to dry. Changed as needed.
A friends ex had a dish cloth/towel fixation. One use and it was considered dirty and changed. They went through a dozen or more of each per day. Made gift giving easy! He was thrilled with a couple of packs of new dish towels!
He also would only eat food purchased that day and would never eat leftovers - even his Mother has no idea how he got these ideas.
Some marketing company (Scotch-Brite client?) got the bright idea to tell people sponges are filthy, because people get queasy (especially mothers) at the idea of bacteria infecting their sparkly dishes. Kind of like the campaign to replace your toothbrush every few weeks.
I’ll spray the sponges with bleach solution once in a while if I’m disinfecting my sink, but other than that, I keep them until they don’t work anymore.
And no, your sink is not filthier than a toilet. That’s also baloney. Most articles say toilet, but microbiologists clarify a sink is dirtier than a toilet seat. And there are different germs and bacteria involved.
