TOTW: Kitchen sponges & tea -towels

Tip Of The Week:

Sponges, cloths and tea-towels in the kitchen can be a party venue for bacteria.
I don't like scare mongering, and think that a bit of dirt and bacteria is good for us, but apparently one study found that some sponges contain more bacteria than a toilet seat. And a dirty or damp cloth is the perfect environment for bacteria to grow. So here's how to keep your sponges and tea towels from making you or your family ill:

Always rinse a sponge well after use with hot water, then squeeze as much of the water out of the sponge before leaving it to dry. Leaving a sponge to soak in water is a bacteria cocktail... yuk. You can also pop your sponges in the dishwasher if you have one because dishwashers use much hotter water to help sterilise. And then of course, never keep a sponge too long, give it a a good sniff every now and then to make sure it's still useable, and if you want a greener way that throwing your sponges in the bin often, read this article... there are some great tips.

Tea-towels are just as bad, and perhaps even worse because many of us wipe our hands on them as we go along (guilty over here!) spreading the bacteria. I keep a pile of seven tea-towels in the cupboard which I replenish every week with a batch of seven freshly laundered ones, giving me one tea towel to use for every day of the week. That way as soon as a towel has had enough use I can grab a clean one. Some people might think that replacing a tea towel everyday is a bit OTT, but it depends how much you use them, and what for. You can also have separate tea -towels for separate tasks, but that just confuses me, and I'd rather use them one a day... they are only a small item to add to the laundry load after all. And of course make sure that the tea towel you use to dry your plates or cutlery isn't the tea towel you just used to wipe your hands on after working with meat - eek!
Have a great week!
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