Kitchen Tip: Nuke Your Sponge

This is actually two tips in one.  If you use a sponge to wash your dishes, when it stops looking, feeling, or smelling clean, stick it in the microwave for two minutes.  This will sterilize it and make it like new again.  (Sorry I can't remember where I picked up this tip.)  Also, when the sponge gets too ragged for dishes, I use it to clean up around the kitchen.  After I nuke that sponge, I go ahead and wipe out the microwave; nuking the sponge helps loosen everything that splattered or overflowed.  (That tip comes from my mother.)