Evaluation of the use of liquid dishwashing compounds to control bacteria in kitchen sponges

A test procedure for evaluating the effect of adding commercial liquid hand dishwashing detergents to kitchen sponges to control microbial growth is described. Claims for this type of application are being made on dishwashing detergents throughout the world. In this evaluation, commercially available kitchen sponges were stripped of antimicrobial compounds. Sponges were then inoculated with a pool of 7 microorganisms which consisted of gram positives, gram negatives, and yeast. Inoculated sponges were treated with the detergent as recommended by the manufacturer and allowed to incubate for 16 h at ambient temperature. Surviving microorganisms were then quantitated using either the spiral or pour plate method. Tests were run using both clean sponges and sponges soiled with 0.5% nonfat dry milk (NFDM). Untreated sponges showed stasis or slightly increased bacterial populations after the incubation period in the absence of NFDM. Significant increases of up to 3 log cfu/mL were observed for untreated sponges when soiled with NFDM. Statistically significant reductions were observed for clean sponges (99.8-99.9998%) and sponges soiled with NFDM (87.6-99.9%) when detergents making "antibacterial sponge" claims were added to the inoculated sponges. Statistically significant differences between detergents making "antibacterial sponge" claims were also observed.