3 Ways to Kill Germs on a Sponge

Cleaning with a gross sponge can actually cause more harm than good. In addition to smelling foul, a dirty sponge can spread mold, bacteria, and viruses like Salmonella and E. Coli from one surface to another. Yummers!

According to a 2007 article in Science Daily, some scientist soaked sponges in ground beef and discovered these are the two best methods for inactivating bacteria, yeasts, and molds on sponges:

• Microwave sponge on high for one minute. This kills 99.99999% of bacteria. I do this and it's the one thing keeping my microwave from being curbed. It also makes me wonder what else the microwave can kill, but that's another blog post.
• Run through the dishwasher. So long as you use the drying cycle, this kills 99.9998% of bacteria.

The same study concluded that the following techniques are pretty much a waste of time:

• Soaking for three minutes in a 10% chlorine bleach solution
• Soaking in lemon juice 
• Soaking in deionized water for one minute

I promised three ways, didn't I? Here's the third:

• Leave the sponge out in the sun on a superhot and sunny day and let the UV rays blast those bacteria to kingdom come! This tip comes from Halle at Whole Lifestyle Nutrition. Read her blog post on her experience. I have no scientific evidence or personal anecdote to back this up, but I share it because it seems like a neat idea.

How do you clean your sponges? 

Also, I can't resist: The Sun reports, "Girl Eats 4,000 Bathroom Sponges."

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