Awareness of plastic pollution in the world has raised significantly. If you had to name a few household items that cause the most damage, what would they be? Carrier bags? Plastic bottles? Do dish washing sponges even spring to mind? Well, they should.
Some statistics
Kitchen sponges and sinks are a home to humongous amounts of bacteria. After all, we use a sponge to clean surfaces and other items collecting dirt and bacteria which later only grows.
As a matter of fact, it is recommend to replace your kitchen sponge every 2-4 weeks.
According to Office for National Statistics, in 2018 there were 26.5 milion household in the UK alone.
Assuming everyone follows the guideline and replaces their kitchen sponges every month, we toss 318 000 000 sponges in the bin in one year… 318 milion!
Now why are they so bad?
Plastic or nylon sponges are bad for the environment for 2 reasons.
- They cannot be recycled and end up in landfill for many years. We all know that oil derived, plastics take YEARS to decompose and hurt animals along the way.
- They shred when used and eventually end up in the water flow as micro plastics. By reaching rivers, streams and seas your rubbish meets all kinds of marine fauna and flora. I’ve already touched up on micro plastics when I shared with you the 8 different ways of reducing plastic in our lives.
Aren’t they too expensive?
Everything is more expensive than plastic. The reason why plastic is everywhere is because it’s so damn cheap.
Unfortunately we forget the price that has to be paid by the environment and our health. It’s worth spending a while to consider what’s more valuable to us. Especially when we’ll not taking about thousands of dollars but about kitchen sponges. With such a small change in your daily life, we can make a big difference. (ehem 318 milion^)
Are the compostable sponges worth it though?
I’ve tried and tested environment friendly plant cellulose sponges from ecovibe and I must say, I’m satisfied. They work.
- they wash off the dirt
- they rinse well
- they don’t crumble or beak down
- to my surprise, they don’t absorb greasy dirt like the regular sponges tend to do. You know the brown, slightly burnt oil from the pan? It always turns my sponges from yellow to brown, but from the cellulose ones it just rinses off.
What’s more to say about a kitchen sponge, it meets its purpose. The fact that I’m using a compostable sponge makes me feel better about myself because that’s another thing I can tick off my household plastic liquidation list.
If you want to try out these sponges or other environment friendly products from ecovibe, here’s a 10% discount with the code ZENETHICALLY10 (the code is case sensitive)