I confess that I did not know that "stain" was the same as "dirty". As I write this, I can see the cognitive dissonance. But I think of a "stain" as a kind of a cosmetic thing. So, in other words, the stains on an otherwise washed tea towel would not trouble me. Not even a little bit.
You know, my home might be a bona fide biohazard.
And the cutting board thing . . . I'm just gonna take the Fifth on that. I have a lot of confidence in bleach. I use more of it than any single one of my peers. So . . . .
I throw out tea towels when they get hole-y, not when they are stained.
But I don't actually throw them out. Rather, I demote them to rags. I live in a rag home, not so much a sponge home. The non-oil rags are washed with each use; this is how I grew up. I think of sponges as like a marketing gimmick, I think it's a holdover from my depression-era parents. When I first moved out, I switched to sponges. And then I was like, nah . . . .
I think this article is really weird, to tell the truth. Downright weird.
[EDITED TO ADD: I use dishtowels to wash dishes. They don't get washed each use if the humidity has permitted them to genuinely dry; but there are a lot of them and they get washed frequently. I realized on reflection, what we're talking about here is using sponges for DISHES. I use dishtowels for dishes, and rags for other cleaning.].
