At Metro Cleaning Service, we love cutting down on waste as much as anyone else. Reusable mugs are wonderful, but not if they are going to make you sick!

What if your mug isn’t as clean as you think it is? It might not be! Approximately twenty percent of office mugs carry fecal bacteria, and 90 percent are covered in other germs. It is common practice to give our office mugs a not so thorough scrub that includes a squirt of liquid dish detergent, a kitchen sponge and a quick rinse off under the kitchen faucet. Most office sponges and kitchen scrub brushes are breeding grounds for bacteria. Office sponges and brushes are used many times daily, by many different individuals and are rarely sanitized. When these handy (but potentially dirty) kitchen tools are used to clean a coffee mug, they can simply end up transferring germs from one mug to another.

Before you trade in your coffee mug for a styrofoam replacement, you might want to make it a point to give your mug a nightly run through in the dishwasher, complete with the dry cycle. At the very least, you may want to consider passing up the kitchen sponge, and opting for a paper towel instead. Rinse mug in the hottest possible water, and dry with a clean paper towel. Lastly, don’t leave your dirty mug on your desk overnight. Bacteria need just a small amount of residue to begin multiplying!