Scientists have revealed that a gigantic number of bacteria live on your typical sponge. <\/p>
Don\u2019t replace your washing-up sponge \u2013 swap it for a brush. That\u2019s one interpretation of a\u00a02022 study<\/a>, which found more bacteria on the average washing-up sponge than there are people on the planet. The authors claim it\u2019s impossible to stop bugs growing on a wet kitchen sponge unless you change it daily, whereas a brush harbours fewer germs because it dries out faster between uses.<\/p> If you\u00a0do\u00a0prefer a sponge \u2013 and you\u2019re not alone, as\u00a0people in eight out of\u00a0ten\u00a0European countries do<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 then you might be relieved to know that neither tends to collect the kinds of germs that cause diseases. (Which is enough to convince me that I never need to replace it. But that\u2019s our dirty little secret, right?)<\/p> Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p> Asked by: Glenn Floyd, Gateshead<\/strong><\/p> To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don’t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n Scientists have revealed that a gigantic number of bacteria live on your typical sponge. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":32724,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush.png",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush-300x200.png",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush-768x512.png",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush-1024x683.png",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush.png",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/08\/the-very-gross-reason-you-should-swap-your-washing-up-sponge-for-a-brush.png",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Scientists have revealed that a gigantic number of bacteria live on your typical sponge.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/32723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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