The Safety-Sponge line of disposable products includes a full line of x-ray detectable gauze sponges, laps and towels of numerous shapes, sizes and plys. Permanently fused to each Safety-Sponge is a barcode label that can be easily read by a SurgiCounter despite the presence of blood or other body fluids. Each barcode represents an individually unique code assigned to that specific Safety-Sponge and no other, even of the same type. When used with the SurgiCounter, the system prevents any one Safety-Sponge from being inadvertently counted IN or OUT more than once, hence addressing the underlying cause of most retained sponge cases, a manual count thought to be correct which is not. The system can tell surgical staff not just if one or more Safety-Sponges are missing, but also exactly which individual Safety-Sponges are still unaccounted for. This helps prevents the very real clinical scenario of finding a sponge but not knowing if it is the missing sponge... which still may be in the patient.