“Brushes are the better choice to clean dishes, from an hygienic point of view. If people preferred a sponge, Egert, who was not involved in this study, recommended using a new one every two to three weeks. Markus Egert, a microbiologist at Furtwangen University in Germany who has conducted similar research, said he already used brushes to wash up his dishes, which he cleaned in the dishwasher. “If there were some low levels of pathogens left on your cloth, they are going to grow quite slowly (they grow optimally at body temperatures), so you would not expect to see much growth of these, and this matched their results - in wet condition there was some limited growth, in drying conditions the numbers either stayed the same or declined,” she explained. “The main message I get is that they did not find any evidence of pathogenic bacteria on the sponges or brushes taken from a range of domestic settings and therefore there is no evidence that these items are a significant source of contamination in normal domestic settings,” Rees said. While study authors recommended the bristles of a brush over the squish of a sponge, Cath Rees, a professor of microbiology at the University of Nottingham who wasn’t involved in the research, she said would continue using a sponge to wash dishes.įor her, the key takeaway was that drying dish sponges and cloths between use was a good idea. “I encourage consumers to try a brush instead the next time they need to replace their sponge.” Also, most brushes have a handle which prevents you from direct hand contact with potential harmful bacteria, in contrast to sponges,” he said. “Since the brush dries very fast, harmful bacteria will die. The key takeaway from the study was that brushes, which dry between use, have lower numbers of bacteria. However, none of these things made a tangible difference - something that surprised the researchers. The owners of the sponges and brushes shared how long they typically used their sponge or brush and how they kept their cleaning utensils clean - rinsing with water, washing with soap and water, placing them in the dishwasher or bleaching. When the researchers added salmonella bacteria to the brushes and sponges, they found a significant reduction in the salmonella numbers in brushes allowed to dry overnight.īut there was no reduction for brushes stored in a plastic bag or for sponges regardless of storing conditions. ‘A single sponge can harbour a higher number of bacteria than there are people on Earth.’ Credit: Yevhenii Podshyvalov /Getty Images/iStockphoto Similar types of non-pathogenic bacteria were found in the two cleaning utensils. However, overall bacteria levels were lower in used brushes than sponges. No pathogenic bacteria (that causes disease) was found in the brushes or the sponges. The sponges collected in Norway were used less frequently. Of the brushes collected in Norway, 32 out of 35 were used five to six times a week or more. The sponges were all used for washing dishes - scrubbing pots and pans, and 19 of the 20 sponges from Portugal were used five to six times a week or more often. The researchers collected kitchen sponges from 20 people living in Portugal and 35 brushes and 14 sponges from people living in Norway.Īn earlier survey of 9966 people by the research team found that sponges were commonly used for cleaning in kitchens in the majority of 10 European countries, with brushes the dominant cleaning utensil for washing up in only two countries - Norway and Denmark. Credit: dowell /Getty Images Battle of the cleaning tools The study found it didn’t really matter how people cleaned their sponge or how often when it came to bacteria growth. The research was part of a European Union-backed project on food safety. In the United States, the USDA said microwaving or boiling kitchen sponges may reduce “some of the bacterial load”, however these measures alone were not adequate to ensure your sponge reduced cross-contamination.
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