Hello, A kettle was cleaned on the inside with a dish scrubber that is used for the meat dishes. Does that make the kettle now meat? I don’t think the scrubber was used to clean proper meat of dishes in the past 24 hours, but does the fact that there is constantly boiling water in the kettle make the situation more serious? Also, as a general question, we try to wash parve dishes with a parve scrubber, but what if they get washed with a meat or dairy scrubber? Does that affect their parve status? Thank you very much!

ב"ה Shalom As you mentioned the proper way is to keep separate sponges for meat, dairy and parve. In the case you described there is room for leniency based on a few assumptions. 1. The kettle was not hot 2. Your scrubber or sponge had soap or some other distasteful material in it. Transferring "meat" to a parve or dairy dish which can create kosher problems needs heat to allow transference. Assuming you did not clean the kettle in scalding heat, there is no problem from that aspect. Secondly, using soap or some other distasteful material does transfer real taste rather a foul one which also cannot make something not kosher. The only problem which may arise if there was meaty grease on your scrubber. If you think there were remnants of grease of any sort, the kettle should be thoroughly cleaned and then it is again parve. In regard to your general question if mistakenly the wrong scrubber is used, the same principles apply,possibly a sponge may have to be thrown away, but if something should arise I strongly suggest you contact us again, because each case has different variables which may change things. All the best