Scotchbrite Scourer

These two samples of scouring sponges, now part of our everyday life, are composed of two separate layers of artificial polymers that are laminated together. The softer layer, which recreates the feel of a natural sponge, is usually made of polyurethane or some other foamed polymer; while the thin, scratchy, dark green layer, which serves as a scouring pad, is made of harder polyethylene mesh. The first type of these bi-functional dish sponges was patented by 3M as a car cleaning sponge, or bug sponge: the hard layer of the sponge was designed to remove those notoriously-difficult-to-remove-insects that get stuck to your car’s exterior.

Natural sponges, which have been used for thousands of years as cleaning, padding and decoarting tools, are the soft fibrous skeletons of sea creatures of the phylum Porifera which means ‘pore bearer’. However, by the 1950’s these had been overfished so heavily that the industry almost collapsed, and most sponge-like materials are now synthetic, made from either cellulose or plastic.