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Daiso Melamine Sponge – It works!

Using just an 11cm x 7 cm sponge and a little water, see the difference. The black lines in between the kitchen tile gaps faded. If I do it a few more times, the lines may be thoroughly cleaned. 

I moved in for about seven months, and we cooked daily. Daily mopping could not remove the stains which build up over time.

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Should I add a quick scrub to my daily cleaning routine now? The following is food for thought.

What is the Melamine Sponge made of? Is it toxic?

Given its superb cleaning ability, I became suspicious of the Melamine Sponge. Is it toxic? I have four children, and two are still picking up stuff from the floor to eat.

The key ingredient in the melamine sponge is mainly melamine resin, which consists of primarily formaldehyde and melamine.

According to the US National Institute of Health, melamine can be present at low levels in food and animal feeds because melamine is used in food packaging. However, long-term intake of melamine in high dosage can result in kidney stone accumulation in the body and even death. For example, see the article on milk in China contaminated by melamine.

So melamine is not okay for ingesting after all.

Formaldehyde is a common ingredient in building materials and household products, including shampoos and paper product coatings. Studies have shown that exposure to high formaldehyde may cause cancer, while results from small amounts remain unclear. 

Although both ingredients sound unsafe, the toxic effects are neutralised if both components are combined.   

According to melaminfoamew.com, studies have shown that the acute half-lethal dose (LD50) of melamine sponges is greater than 1 g / (kg body weight). Using sheep, rabbits and rats as experimental subjects, no kidney toxicity was found. Thus it is not supposed to be toxic.

daiso melamine sponge

Is Melamine environment friendly?

The melamine sponge is not the usual cellulose sponges we use in the kitchen. Instead, this resin sponge works like sandpaper that scraps off stained surfaces.

When working against surfaces, the sponge will gradually disintegrate into tiny particles of plastics as if it has disappeared. However, the microstructure of this material is so hard that it cannot be broken down further and is thus non-biodegradable. These tiny particles will likely end up in our sewage system, in the sea, in the marine ecosystem and finally back in our stomachs. T

On the other hand, those cellulose sponges are made from wood fibres and can biodegrade.

The Big Question

Knowing the facts, will you still use the sponge regularly as if it is so magical. The key here is not to use the sponge to clean our vegetables or wipe our cooking appliances. It may be hard to remove the melamine foam residual from our cooking appliances, especially for items we cannot rinse.

It is a beautiful tool for scrubbing the floor, but oh mine, I need many packs of the sponges to whiten my kitchen floor and grout.

I explored using baking soda to scrub the floors as well. It does help with the cleaning though it is not as effective as the melamine sponge. It takes more time and with lots of elbow grease.

Two years on

Two years after writing this post, I have given up using the Magic Sponge to clean the grout. It is simply too much work and too much sponge required, albeit in a small kitchen at home. 

Instead, I have found the sponge especially useful for cleaning pencil and pen marks on the wall due to having four kids running around the house all day, drawing on walls intentionally and unintentionally.

Further, I prefer the 0.9-inch thick sponge in the orange packaging. The thickness allows me to feel and control the amount of pressure I should put in when scrubbing surfaces. On the other hand, I find the 1.1inch thick sponge in the red packaging too wide for me to use.

Want to get your sponges online? Click on the buttons below to compare prices.

Before I end, have you thought of what to do with your SingapoRediscover Vouchers here?  You explore the Klook website for more ideas. The vouchers can be redeemed there. 

Klook.com Klook.com

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