Cleaning up COVID confusion
Understanding cleaners and their purposes can help to keep you healthy, Vicky Sanderson writes.
A lot of what we know about COVID-19 has changed since it hit. Back then, many of us — myself included — were disinfecting everything that came into the house. Now we know it's not necessary to wipe down the mail and understand that it's more important to wash hands frequently, wear a mask around others, and keep our social distance.
Though I no longer wipe packaged groceries with alcohol, I continue to do what's always been part of my home hygiene — frequently cleaning and disinfecting handles, fixtures, and switches — all magnets for a variety of bacterial baddies that can make us sick. I also think it remains sound advice to wipe tins of food — which so many hands may have touched — before storing and opening.
Consumers working and schooling from home rightly continue to focus on indoor air quality. A study from Dyson indicated that while outdoor air metrics improved in some cities during lockdown, there was a small but consistent increase in indoor contaminants. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health was one of several authorities suggesting that increasing ventilation and purifying air while limiting occupants in a space could reduce infection.
Given that public health experts have long known that well-designed airflow improves human health, it's no surprise they began to ask how it could affect COVID infection.
The response from Big Ass Fans is a ceiling unit the Lexington, Ky.-based company claims kills COVID in the air by combining germicidal Uv-light and ion technology with powerful circulation. An average room, they say, would be clean in an hour. Bigger fans, which come as wide as 24 feet, could play a role in safer industrial, commercial, recreational, and institutional reopenings.
There are other simple ways to improve air quality. Reducing chemical use — another basic of eco-design — just got a boost from cleaning product manufacturer Libman, whose research suggests that water and friction are often sufficient to remove bacteria from surfaces.
Used with water, they say, Libman's refillable Freedom Mop can remove 99 per cent of two types of bacteria — E. coli and staphylococcus aureus — common but nasty little germs.
That makes it an eco-friendly
tool for everyday cleaning. Tip: Keep one of their little brushes by the sink exclusively for scrubbing root vegetables and fruit.
When I do use disinfectant, I use product from reputable sources, like the Quebec-based Attitude, which sells refillable home cleaning products online, some of it in bulk. The company has just added to its lineup new disinfectant cleaners with a lavender/thyme scent, and five new unscented products.
The pad for Libman's Freedom Mop washes like a ribbon in the machine (air-dry it, though) and comes off the stick with minimal touching.
In the spirit of reducing contact with germs, expect more and more homeowners to use motion and voice-detection systems for lighting, audio, and water.
Air quality can also be affected by materials like rugs, which can play host to hundreds of thousands of microbes. Korhani has a new line of antimicrobial indoor/ outdoor rugs ($29 to $999) that it says slow growth of bacteria, fungus, and mildew.
Made just east of Montreal, they are just one of several home products incorporating antimicrobial properties.
Laminates, from sources like Wilsonart that inhibit bacteria, mould, and mildew and meet stringent cleaning protocols, may set new standards.
Adding to a sense of cleanliness and calm is the fact that many of these now mimic nature so effectively: Wilsonart's own pretty Wellness Collection is inspired by restful scenes of fog-misted mountains and layered skies.