The gross secret hiding in your travel mug

Saving a dollar or two on your daily cup – or four – of coffee by using a travel mug can really add up, making KeepCups and the like a financially and environmentally responsible way to stay caffeinated.

Sure, it’s a bit of a hassle to wash those cold dregs out after a cup of joe, but it’s good as new after a minute in hot soapy water, right?

As one US woman discovered, wrong.

While washing her travel mugs Veronica Lucas discovered not only that the rubber lips on the cups were removable, they were absolutely filthy.

“I came home and took the removable seals (that we didn’t even know were removable!) off of our lids...and THIS is what I found,” she wrote in a Facebook post sharing her gross discovery.

Attached were images of the disgusting black and brown gunk that had caked onto the inner lip and removable rubber sections of the mugs.

Lucas’ post has now gone viral, with over 122,000 shares and thousands of comments stressing about how gross their own cups may be, but in amongst the “gross” and “eww” replies were some tips.

“Mould can grow on any surface, even water bottles, just make sure you wash everything” read one reply.

“Anything that even looks like it will come off, I take it off and scrub it,” one commenter wrote.

“Baby bottle brushes are great for cleaning these crevices too.”

“Parents also need to be aware of this on sip cups,” one woman added, highlighting that the same build up can appear on children’s cups with similar lid designs.

The build up of muck tends to be focussed around the lids of travel mugs and bottles, which can have some serious health implications if you’re drinking from a mug that hasn’t been properly cleaned.

Mould exposure can cause major health issues, especially for people suffering from allergies, asthma or compromised immune systems.

And though the average adult would likely only experience some stuffiness or wheezing from accidentally drinking a little, it’s not a chance we should be taking.

Plus, it’s super gross.

So when it comes to keeping you keep cups clean the best thing to do is make sure you really are washing it properly every time, and that means pulling the whole thing apart.

Remove the lid, rim and anything else that could be hiding gunk and make sure to give it a proper scrubbing in hot soapy water.

And if you’ve just been giving your cup a casual rinse for the past year, now might be a good time to invest in a new one.