How to Resuscitate a Tired-Looking Old Sponge and Make it Like New Again

Readers, just a quick post today on how to get a lot more mileage out of a common household sponge.

We all know that a kitchen sponge can start to look a little worn down over time. After washing enough dishes and wiping down enough counters and stovetops, a standard sponge will start to get stained and beat-up looking.

Heck, it may even start to smell a little "off" ... for lack of a better word.

There's an easy fix for this that will return your sponge to like-new condition. You'll get significantly more mileage out of it without having to buy a new one.

It's laughably simple: First, find a bowl big enough to fit the entire sponge. Add about a cup of water and about 1/3 cup of household bleach to the bowl. Squeeze out the sponge, place it in the bowl, and squeeze it a several times in the bleach/water solution to make sure the solution is well absorbed into the sponge. Let it stand for ten minutes or so, flipping it over once or twice, squeezing the sponge a few more times in the solution. Finally, thoroughly rinse and squeeze the sponge carefully under cold running water.

Et voila: You have a new-looking sponge good for quite a bit more use--at the cost of penny or two's worth of bleach. Enjoy!


Read Next: The Top 20 Worst Self-Indulgent Quotes From Michael Pollan's "Cooked"


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
Easy. Do all your shopping at Amazon.com via the links on this site! You can also link to me or subscribe to my RSS feed. Finally, consider sharing this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to Facebook, Twitter (follow me @danielckoontz!) or to bookmarking sites like reddit, digg or stumbleupon. I'm deeply grateful to my readers for their ongoing support.

2 comments:

Juli said...

Also… a super quick solution to the smelling a little "off" — saturate it with water, put it on a plate, and microwave it for a couple minutes! It doesn’t fix the coloring issues (like the bleach would), but it does kill bacteria and make it seem much fresher/cleaner. And with minimal effort! :)

Daniel said...

Brilliant idea Juli, thank you for sharing!

DK