Green Cleaning is the Key to Good Disinfection

By ChemSpec ECOGENT

We are slowly leaving behind an era that concentrated on killing first. In out eagerness to create health care, food preparation, school, offices and home environments that are free of pathogens, we created strong and often dangerous chemical agents that were designed to defeat the enemy immediately upon first encounter. The only good bug was a dead bug, lying devastated in the disinfectant's path.
The story of the killing era will go down in history along with many other well intended but ultimately unsuccessful industrial campaigns. The killing era explored all combinations, ending up with the widespread use of disinfectant cleaners that were designed to kill and clean at the same time. Only they really didn't, in most practical applications.
Disinfectants are most effective at creating pathogen-free surfaces when they are applied to pre-cleaned surfaces. They also require that the surfaces remain wet with disinfectant solution for a minimum contact time, often ten minutes or more. Neither of these conditions is met very often in situations where the disinfectant and cleaner are combined in one solution for daily cleaning. Wipe on, wipe off. Most surfaces air-dry quickly. When is all the killing supposed to take place?
The part that we kept ignoring is the piece about applying disinfectants to pre-cleaned surfaces. Why should that help? Because green cleaning is literally the key to good disinfection. Pathogens are removed like prisoners of war, and taken of the battle field immediately so they cannot affect anybody, either dead or alive.

The Disinfection and Cleaning Mantras

The logic is only slightly different. In disinfection, the mantra is "if you see a bug, kill it," or even, "if you think a bug might be there, kill everything in sight." In cleaning, the mantra is "if you see soil, remove it," and often "even if you can't see it, remove it anyway."
The corollary to the disinfection mantra is "pour on lots of fire-power; don't let them escape alive." It is ironic that in an era where overkill was directive, we may not have been achieving much kill at all. And the collateral damage was really quite extensive.
Of course there were many mistakes on the cleaning side as well. We noticed that people didn't really like cleaning. It takes time, and it costs money. So they cleaned as little as they could get away with.
Then the cleaning solution people kept coming up with stronger and stronger cleaners, which were ready to attack the accumulated grunge of the ages that built up while we weren't cleaning. The corollary to the cleaning mantra became "burn through the dirty stuff, we have no idea where it all came from." And the collateral damage was also quite extensive.
And both the cleaning and disinfectant people also commanded the era of powerful perfumes. The myth that perfumes helped to clean and disinfect became widespread, to the point that users no longer trusted cleaning solutions that didn't convert the room into a lilac bush or a pine forest. The perfume mantra became "only when you can smell what you have done can you be sure that you have cleaned and disinfected." And the collateral damage to people who are made sick by perfumes was quite extensive.

The Collateral Damage was Quite Extensive

Both sides had reached the pinnacle of chemical power before they decided to combine forces and attack the enemy together with all they could muster. Neither

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