The 8 Kitchen Items You're Keeping Too Long (and What That's Actually Costing You)

Kitchen minimalists will tell you to buy less and keep things longer, which is good advice for a cast-iron skillet and genuinely bad advice for a sponge. The truth is that some kitchen tools are built to last decades and some are designed, or simply deteriorate, in ways that make replacement a matter of hygiene rather than preference. Eight items in particular have a way of overstaying their welcome in most kitchens, quietly harboring bacteria, leaching chemicals or just performing poorly long past the point where they should have been swapped out.

A lot of that old gear isn't just "worn in," it's worn out. Those scratches in your plastic cutting board or an old sponge are five-star resorts for bacteria. And some popular plastic items can leach microplastics into your food.

If you're clinging to items you've had since your first apartment, you're not just making cooking harder; you're...

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