Sure, I thought, when I saw the claims on the box. “Mr. Clean Magic Eraser cleans dirt and grime like you never thought you could.” Well, I have a long-standing scientific interest in materials in the wrong place, which is exactly what dirt is. Mustard on the hot dog is fine, mustard on the tie is dirt. Getting rid of dirt means dissolving it in an appropriate solvent, reacting it with chemicals that will destroy it, or physically removing it by abrasion. Over the years I have tried numerous products which have claimed to solve our dirt woes, and although there certainly are some effective ones out there, few live up to their advertising hype. So, I was skeptical about Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. But that skepticism quickly evaporated as the product really delivered the goods. Moisten this white sponge and with a gentle wipe crayon and scuff marks on walls disappear, tiles come clean and smudges on kitchen counters and cabinets magically vanish.
How does it work? Kitchen counters and cabinets make a good starting point for our story because often they are made of the same stuff as the Magic Eraser. Melamine resin is what we are talking about. This in turn is the offspring of the first ever completely synthetic plastic, Bakelite, which chemist Leo Baekeland produced by combining phenol with formaldehyde in 1906. It was an excellent material but colours were limited and the search was on for a resin that could better support dyes. This led to urea-formaldehyde plastics which in turn led to melamine-formaldehyde resins that could be produced in a wide range of colors and were resistant to heat, water and detergents. They went by the shortened name, “melamine.” By the mid 1930s, beautifully colored melamine dishes graced store shelves and Queen Mary of England proudly used her plastic picnic set.
Melamine is a hard plastic, unless it is made into a foam. If sodium bicarbonate is added to the plastic raw materials, it decomposes in the hot melt and releases carbon dioxide gas. As the melt cools, the bubbles of carbon dioxide become trapped and a foam results. Melamine foams can be used for cushions, acoustic barriers and amazingly, for stain removal! A melamine sponge is extremely flexible and conforms to most surfaces to reach dirt that ordinary cleaning products can't. But that is not the real magic. Rubbing with the sponge causes the polymer to break down into very hard microscopic particles which can get in between the dirt and the surface. Sort of like a very fine sandpaper effect. The cleaning then, is purely physical, no solvents or chemical reactions are involved.
Now for the “buts.” They always seem to come with any scientific advance, don’t day? Medications can treat disease but they come with side effects. Life without cars is unimaginable but they pollute our air. So it is with plastics. They are everywhere, in our electronics, medical equipment, packaging, plumbing, furniture, fabrics, sporting equipment, carpets and building materials. But they can be formulated with chemicals that are of concern when released into the environment which inevitably happens. They can also break down into micro and nanoplastics that eventually end up in our bodies, although the consequence of that is unclear. The “Magic Eraser” is a plastic so it is burdened with these issues. There is no question that it releases microplastics since after all, that is the way it functions. This doesn’t mean it presents a risk to the user directly, but the concern is that the particles eventually end up going down the drain and may eventually come back to haunt us. Remember that after each use the Magic Eraser becomes smaller. Where did the particles go?
Another set of cautions addresses the appropriate and inappropriate uses of the eraser. Don’t use it to remove pigeon droppings from your car, dirt from your electronic screens, stains from marble counters or non-stick pots because it can scratch the surface. But if you want to remove splatter from your oven door, grease from your stove top, rust rings from your sink, baked on grime from glass dishes or just want to make your faucets shine, go for the Magic Eraser. I recently had to change my fridge and I don’t even want to describe the horrors on the tiles the old one left. But a few minutes on my knees with my hand clutching the Magic Eraser, and the stains vanished, as if by, what can I say, magic!
