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For years, we’ve been told by home-keeping experts that microwaving or boiling our sponges is a great, budget-friendly alternative to buying a new one right away. But apparently, all that disinfecting does is make smelly sponges smellier — and more bacteria-filled. A study from Scientific Reports, featured in the New York Times, has found that trying to disinfect your dirty sponge will only kill some of the bacteria on it, leaving the strongest, smelliest and potentially most pathogenic strains behind. Disinfecting it, it turns out, does not necessarily work. Researchers found that microwaving a sponge, throwing it in the laundry or dishwasher, dousing it in vinegar, boiling it in a pot on the stove, and other popular sponge-cleaning solutions just create more of some of the most potentially pathogenic bacteria, like the Acinetobacter, Moraxella and Chryseobacterium species — or “massive colonization” on your sponges. In the same density as human fecal matter. The peer-reviewed epidemiology study on the (ever more trendy topic of the) microbiome was designed to stress and visualize the role of kitchen sponges as microbiological hot spots in the “built environment” of our homes and workplaces, where (at least in industrialized nations) we spend up to 90 percent of our lifetimes. And according to the results, our kitchens — due largely to our used kitchen sponges — harbor more bacteria than our bathrooms. Researchers found that popular sponge-cleaning methods can only reduce general bacteria up to 60 percent, while making the remaining bacteria stronger and more densely packed on our sponges.By looking at the DNA and RNA in samples from 14 used sponges that may be as dirty as the one sitting in your sink right now, Markus Egert, a microbiologist at the University of Furtwangen in Germany, and his team identified 362 different species of bacteria living within them. And the scientists were surprised to find how densely the microbes occupied such close quarters: About 82 billion bacteria were living in just a cubic inch of space. “That’s the same density of bacteria you can find in human stool samples,” Dr. Egert told the New York Times. “There are probably no other places on earth with such high bacterial densities.” Read the full Scientific Reports study here, or the fascinating science behind why your sponges smell and why you should stop trying to disinfect them at home immediately — in layman’s terms—on NYTimes.com. So how often should you replace your sponge? About once a week. Just skip the advice about disinfecting and go for broke with a brand new pack of scrubbers. One more area it’s now OK —actually, highly recommended — to #treatyourself.

Sponges can be a breeding ground for bacteria if not properly dried or using SpongeBath Sanitizing Sponge Holder. One scientist suggests you bin your sponge immediately (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)   For those who wash their dishes by hand, the usual tool of choice is a classic sponge or scour. But one scientist has revealed that your sponge could be making your plates dirtier, even if they appear clean. Trond Møretrø, a research scientist at a Norweigian food research institute, has explained how dish washing with a sponge can smear bacteria across your crockery. He advised anyone still washing their dishes with a sponge to immediately chuck it in the bin. The germ expert spoke to CNN about the cleaning item and explained that salmonella and other bacteria are prone to growing in a sponge. This is because if you tend to use your sponge every day, it's very rare that it will ever be fully dry. As a result, the damp conditions inside the sponge are the perfect place for bacteria to grow.While most of the bacteria isn't harmful to humans, using a sponge can increase the spread of salmonella, which can make you sick. Trond said: "A single sponge can harbour a higher number of bacteria than there are people on Earth. "The sponge is humid and accumulates food residues which are also food for bacteria, leading to the rapid growth of bacteria." The scientist also said that cleaning your sponge doesn't make much difference, and the only way to ensure complete hygiene while using a sponge is to replace it every day - which is pricey and bad for the environment. So what should you be using to clean your crockery? According to Trond, the best thing you can use to help you shift stubborn food is a scrubbing brush, as the bristles dry fast enough to kill off any bacteria quickly. It also has a handle that keeps your hands away from direct contact with nasty bacteria - unlike with a sponge.He explained: "Since the brush dries very fast, harmful bacteria will die. Also, most brushes have a handle which prevents you from direct hand contact with potentially harmful bacteria, in contrast to sponges. SpongeBath - Solves The Germy Sponge Problem. Click here to order you SpongeBath: https://www.spongebath.com/pages/sponge-bath-landing

Researchers say your kitchen sponge can have more bacteria than there are people on earth Jun 13, 2022, 6:15amUpdated 1d ago By: News 12 Staff Using a sponge might not be the best way to clean your dirty dishes. Norwegian researchers say kitchen sponges hold onto way more bacteria than kitchen brushes. They found that a single sponge can harbor a higher number of bacteria than there are people on earth, and that includes salmonella. This happens because the sponge stays wet and humid, and it collects food residue resulting in a perfect environment for bacteria to grow. They say brushes are better because they dry out and the bacteria dies. SpongeBath Solves The Germy Sponge Problem: https://www.spongebath.com/pages/sponge-bath-landing

  Expert-Recommended "Toxic" Bad Habits You Need to Stop Now If you do any of these things, experts warn you to stop now. By Heather Newgen  Published on June 1, 2022 | 7:46 AM FACT CHECKED BYEMILIA PALUSZEK While we all like to think that our bad health habits aren't that harmful, the truth is some behaviors are so unhealthy they're toxic. Smoking, excessive drinking and lack of exercise are all things we know that are dangerous, but there's so many more things that we don't think about that can cause serious damage. Eat This, Not That! Health spoke with Gabby Martin, a supervisor at Bio Recovery who revealed what habits we do at home that are toxic and ranked them in order of their toxicity.  Read on—and to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these. Changing Your Dish Sponge Too Late The number one thing people can do that's really toxic is reuse an old dirty sponge. Martin asks, "Did you know that microbiologists have found a sponge harbors more harmful bacteria than any other object in your home? Technically, it should be replaced once a week. Most people forget about their sponge until it gets to a serious state of disrepair (or just plain nasty). It's also very overlooked how bad sponges get, particularly because they absorb so much." SpongeBath Solves The Germy Sponge Problem: https://www.spongebath.com/pages/sponge-bath-landing

SpongeBath Solves The Germy Sponge Problem: https://www.spongebath.com/pages/sponge-bath-landing

As you're scrubbing away, you may be surprised to learn that choosing a sponge versus a dish brush can have an impact on the amount of bacteria in the kitchen. In fact, using a sponge instead of a dish brush is the No. 1 mistake you're making when washing dishes—here's why.

MICROBIOLOGYKitchen Sponges Help Breed Bacteria BetterThere’s a structural reason your sponge hosts so many microbesBy Joanna Thompson on May 1, 2022 Scientific American May 2022 IssueYour kitchen sponge is teeming with microbes. But repeated contact with food waste is not the only reason; a sponge’s unique structure plays a role, too. It could even inspire a new way to grow bacteria for research, according to a study in Nature Chemical Biology.One of the biggest challenges microbiologists face is culturing bacteria species that will not readily grow in a laboratory. Some microbes are incredibly finicky, and scientists often have no idea what conditions these organisms need. “It’s kind of like trying to make pandas reproduce in the zoo,” says bacteriologist Trina McMahon of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who was not involved in the new study.Sponges could provide an answer. Bacteria are usually grown on petri dishes’ smooth, unpartitioned surfaces. But sponges are riddled with hollow pockets—which, crucially, are not uniform. “Imagine there are tiny rooms and bigger rooms,” says Lingchong You, a microbiologist at Duke University and senior author of the study. Some bacteria types depend on many other individuals for survival and need space to form large communities, but others require relative isolation so they are not killed by their neighbors. Sponges’ mix of larger and smaller chambers offers an ideal range.Although a sponge’s potential as a bacteria farm might seem intuitive, “actually demonstrating that experimentally is a challenging process,” You says. The researchers first modeled spongelike environments on a computer and found that varying chamber sizes would allow many different bacterial strains to thrive. Then they replicated these results in cellulose sponges.“It’s rare to see both [scenarios] combined in such a nice way,” McMahon says. But she notes that You’s team focused on Escherichia coli strains that were lab-engineered to be either dependent on one another or self-sufficient—so she wonders if the sponge technique will work with other sensitive bacteria. “There is a limit, I think, to what you can do with those engineered strains,” she says.Future experiments will show whether You’s purpose-built sponges can support wild microbes. In the meantime, he recommends sanitizing your kitchen sponge: “It’s probably not the cleanest item.”This article was originally published with the title "Sponge Gunk" in Scientific American 326, 5, 20 (May 2022) SpongeBath Solves The Germy Sponge Problem: https://www.spongebath.com/pages/sponge-bath-landing   Read the article here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kitchen-sponges-help-breed-bacteria-better/

Kitchen sponges are bacteria’s dream home These cleaner-uppers provide an ideal living space in which microbes can thrive.

Kitchen sponges can be loaded with bacteria, but most of us prefer not to think about it. It’s scientists’ job to think about the things others don’t, however, and one team investigated sponges’ suitability as a microbial medium, learning that items intended for cleaning are actually a better home for microbial growth than instruments specifically designed for the purpose. This could prove very useful, if you can get over how disgusting it is. The fact that kitchen items like sponges and chopping boards form bacterial breeding grounds, particularly when damp, has been known for a long time. A team at Duke University learned why, as something of a sideline to their main research. In the journal Nature Chemical Biology, they reveal a full understanding of sponge’s suitability depends on understanding the way different bacteria interact. Laboratory efforts to grow bacteria usually focus on a single strain, hoping a plentiful supply of food and the right amount of warmth and light will do the trick. For some species, this is the case. Others, however, are the extroverts of the microworld, and do best when surrounded by a diverse array of other lifeforms. “Bacteria are just like people living through the pandemic – some find it difficult being isolated while others thrive," Professor Lingchong You said in a statement. "We've demonstrated that in a complex community that has both positive and negative interactions between species, there is an intermediate amount of integration that will maximize its overall coexistence." Soil suits both types of bacteria exceptionally well, which isn’t really surprising given the hundreds of millions of years they have had to not only adapt to it, but reshape it according to their needs. Plant roots and the human gut, both depending on healthy microbial communities, are similar to soil in providing spaces in a mix of sizes where bacteria can grow. Sponges, the team found, mimic that structure to a remarkable extent. Researchers created a liquid medium containing many strains of E. coli and spread them over plates with growing spaces – or “wells” – of varying sizes. These ranged from six large wells where bacteria could congregate to 1,536 spaces so small a strain could expect to be alone. They found a Goldilocks zone of intermediate sizes maximized growth. These different species of bacteria — each engineered to glow a different color so researchers can track their growth — are thriving in harmony with one another. Other species need to be alone, or destroy those around them. A well-structured environment allows all of these to succeed.. Image Credit: Andrea Weiss, Zach Holmes and Yuanchi Ha "The small portioning really hurt the species that depend on interactions with other species to survive, while the large portioning eliminated the members that suffer from these interactions (the loners)," Professor You said. "But the intermediate portioning allowed a maximum diversity of survivors in the microbial community." Alongside the carefully designed growth media, the team performed the same experiment on strips of sponge and found the three-dimensional structure, designed for maximum water absorption, encouraged growth even better than ideally-sized wells. "As it turns out, a sponge is a very simple way to implement multilevel portioning to enhance the overall microbial community," Professor You said. The spaces are separate enough to allow bacteria that need to be alone to flourish, while still allowing successful strains to spread, at least while damp. Researchers struggling to culture truculent bacteria in the future might find this information useful, modifying the physical as well as chemical environment to enhance growth Now if we can just work out how to clean our plates and cutlery with a petri dish maybe we won’t need to worry about eating off filthy items.  SpongeBath Solves The Germy Sponge Problem: https://www.spongebath.com/pages/sponge-bath-landing