I see your gloves and boots, and raise you…
Mmm. Generic foam from China made from Melamine and Formaldehyde. What could go wrong?
It’s the gig economy (pronounced “gouge”).
melamine foam is melamine foam, the brand name doesn’t have some sort of magic formulation despite the name.
there is a small range of density that the foam can be produced at, but mr clean is already on the less dense end of that spectrum, i can’t imagine an off brand could possibly be less dense. so unless they are using an adulterated product, which seems like it would be more difficult to formulate, then the generic are identical to the brand name. anyone else have any info?
It’s the case where one of the off-brands is just fine. I hear there is also a crap off-brand. Don’t know which one this is, but I bought 100 of these for around 10 bucks. They’re not as long lasting as the name brand, last nowhere near half as long - but they cost far far less than half as much. I was pleased with mine, fantastic for cleaning the bathroom. Check the ratings?
What happens to them in the waste stream? I’m not familiar with them… Are they recyclable or compostable?
I ordered mine from a direct-from-China web front. 100-pack for $7. They last a couple of uses on smooth surfaces and disintegrate after a single use on rough ones. But then, Mr. Clean rapidly dies on rough surfaces also.
I’m pretty sure I’ll get far more uses from my 100-pack than I would from 3 packs’ worth of Mr. Clean pads (also roughly $7 worth)
IRL as soon as the Muggle government discovered the nature of the threat, they would use WW2 tactics and saturate the area with too many aircraft for the bad guys to control. Of course the “good” wizards would be collateral damage, but that would actually be seen as a desirable result.
Melamine, I believe, eventually degrades. There are rhodococcus variants in soil that can metabolyse it, and also, I think, some pseudomonas. (I found this out when doing a risk assessment on the use of vibrating tank abrasives, some of which are nylon based and some are melamine, and which contain particles of, say, silica.)
Melamine seems to be reasonably benign if you’re not the victim of a Chinese con-man using ground up melamine to make watered milk pass nitrogen content tests (for estimating protein).
Best thing about the bbs—people who know stuff, willing to share. Thanks for the reply. 
How about what happens when you burn it, do you know anything about that? (My city incinerates whatever’s non-recyclable/non-compostable, and it doesn’t sound like these sponges would actually qualify for either of those two city pickups.)
Oh, that was what he was trying to do! Thanks, I never delved deeply enough to figure this out.
Which is somewhat ironic given what I was doing for a living at the time (it involved lots and lots and lots of milk).
Assuming 1 use on off brand and 7 uses of the name brand, it’s still more economical to get the off brand.
I prefer the off brand because the blue sponge layer in the name brand product always seemed line a waste to me.
Except when it isn’t. As you mentioned, there’s a range in density. The 30 pack of generic I got for about 3 bucks disintegrated after using once on some water that had boiled over on my glass top range. I finished up and did some more with some Mr. Clean ones and it didn’t fall apart at all.
A real incinerator burns at very high temperatures in an oxygen-rich environment, so as long as the refuse doesn’t contain any particularly gnarly elements, it should be okay. Melamine foam doesn’t; as Wikipedia puts it, it’s a “formaldehyde-melamine-sodium bisulfite copolymer”, so nothing but C H O N S Na.
But don’t try to dispose of it in a bonfire or fireplace; not hot enough, too little oxygen.
They aren’t allowed to put it into milk and baby food so they export it. Sad!
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