Sponge Sanitizing Myth Busted

Humans can't effectively sterilize kitchen sponges outside a lab. In 2017, researchers in Germany reported in Scientific Reports that used sponges, analyzed with microbiome sequencing and confocal microscopy, were massively colonized by Acinetobacter, Moraxella, and Chryseobacterium species. Common sanitation efforts, they found, failed to reliably reduce the bacterial load and could potentially increase the proportion of bacteria. The team recommended simple replacement on a regular schedule, such as weekly, instead of trying to disinfect at home.

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