by Autumn Ryan, Founder and CEO, Aseptic Health

Even most dictionaries get it wrong…disinfecting and sanitizing are not interchangeable. Sanitizing a surface means you’re lessening the number of germs on a surface to a safe level. Disinfecting means you’re actually killing bacteria and viruses by using a chemical for this purpose.

The label of a sanitizing product usually states that it reduces germs on a surface by at least 99.9 percent.

The label of a hospital-grade disinfectant kills 99.999% of germs.

There is a huge difference between 99.9% and 99.999%; 100 fold to be exact.  The more 9s, the more likelihood of not getting sick from that countertop or door handle or HVAC coil. For more information see our article on kill logs.

How Does A Disinfectant Kill?

Disinfectants are either oxidizers or nonoxidizers. Oxidizers readily release oxygen or another oxidizing compound. Oxiders can include halogens, chlorine, iodine, bromine and chlorine dioxide or sodium chlorite, with chlorine dioxide and sodium chlorite being amongst the safest.

Chlorine dioxide and sodium chlorite are able to kill bacteria, fungi and viruses, because while these microorganisms are vastly different, the composition of their cellular surfaces, which provide their protection, contain similar components, namely proteins, polysaccharides and lipids, all of which can be oxidized and destroyed by chlorine dioxide or sodium chlorite.  Additionally, the propagation of bacteria, fungi and viruses relies on DNA, which can also be oxidized and destroyed by chlorine dioxide or sodium chlorite.  The ability of chlorine dioxide and sodium chlorite to destroy the key components of microorganisms makes them highly effective as antimicrobial agents.

Are There Differences In Disinfectants?

The EPA registers three types of disinfectants based on the microorganisms they kill.

• Limited – found mostly in household use and kill either Salmonella choleraesuis or Staphlococcus aureus
• General – found in commercial use and kill both Salmonella and Staph.
• Hospital – effective at killing Salmonella, Staph and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which hides behind biofilm and is difficult to eliminate (See our previous article on biofilms.)

Why We Clean, Sanitize And Disinfect

There are generally two approaches to cleaning: First there’s cleaning for appearance—when you see that something looks dirty, you clean it. Then there’s cleaning for health. Cleaning for health is as practical to our lifestyle as eating correctly, getting enough sleep, and exercising. Healthy cleaning doesn’t only apply to our homes, but to all areas we inhabit: our workplaces, schools, libraries, restaurants, childcare centers, and of course our hospitals and clinics. We all want to live in a healthy environment, yet many of the common cleaning and disinfecting products sold today contain harmful chemicals strong enough to cause eye, nose, and lung irritation, as well as rashes, headaches, nausea, and asthma.

The EPA estimates that cleaning products alone contribute approximately 8 percent of total nonvehicular emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Look under your kitchen sink and read the labels. Have you brought toxins into your home, all in the name of healthy cleaning?

We are constantly improving and proving effective cleaning protocols and educating our markets, thus reducing costs due to the reduction of illnesses, employee sick days, and increasing long-term gains generated by good health. We are also helping to reduce the amount of harmful chemicals making their way into the water we drink, the air we breathe, the land in which we grow our food, and in our own bodies.

Both antimicrobials and antibacterials act on different types of microorganisms. Antibacterials destroy or inhibit only the growth of bacteria. Antimicrobials destroy or inhibit the growth of all microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi and viruses. Therefore antimicrobials provide a broader scope of protection than antibacterials. In fact, using plain soap and water to wash your hands may provide greater protection from colds and flu than antibacterial hand soap or wipes.

Ban on Triclosan

You may remember that in December 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final rule banning the use of triclosan and 23 other ingredients in over-the-counter antiseptic products due to insufficient data regarding their safety and effectiveness. Among the reasons for the ban is the FDA’s concern that exposure to triclosan contributes to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Manufacturers reformulated their products and now many of the antibacterial soaps contain botanicals or other natural ingredients. But the FDA continues to state that there isn’t enough scientific evidence to show that over-the-counter antibacterial soaps are better at preventing illness than washing with plain soap and water.

Antimicrobial Regulation

All antimicrobial cleaners are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as pesticides. But don’t let the word pesticide scare you. They are pesticides because they kill organisms. Some kill organisms more effectively than others. And some are safer than others. There are basically three categories of antimicrobials.

Sanitizers are the weakest of the antimicrobials and are effective against bacteria. Disinfectants come in two categories; disinfectants that kill bacteria, fungi and viruses and hospital disinfectants that kill bacteria, fungi and viruses at a more efficient kill time than regular disinfectants. The safest antimicrobials have a pH of 7 which is the same as water.

The New Normal

So much misinformation about cleaning products existed before the pandemic and now even more questionable products are emerging. Our “Tip of the Week” is read the fine print.

 We just received an email this week from a book publisher offering a new antimicrobial coating for book covers. It sounds like a fine idea, but reading further into the fine print: “Antimicrobial coating has only been tested against specific bacteria and may not kill or otherwise neutralize viruses and other patho­gens.”

Our takeaway? Read your book then wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds before touching your face or eating.  You can’t be too safe nowadays!

By Stephen Lawson, COO of Aseptic Health, LLC and Certified Clinically Clean® Specialist

We’ve touched on this subject before in DisinfecTips, but I’d like to take a deeper dive into the difference between products that disinfect, sanitize and clean. I’ll also take a broad-brush explanation on the subject of sterilizing.

General Cleaning
General cleaning can be accomplished with a variety of products on the market, from vinegar to dish soap to hydrogen peroxide to pine and lemon scented cleaners for specific purposes. General cleaning is primarily for appearance sake, but it can also be for health sake in that general cleaning keeps biofilms from growing. Biofilms harbor bacteria. If you really want to clean for optimum health, you’ll need a stronger product.

Stronger Cleaners Are Regulated By The EPA
At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), products used to kill viruses and bacteria on surfaces are registered as antimicrobial pesticides.

Many products that are both sanitizers and disinfectants are registered with the EPA because they’ve been lab tested against both standards. Those standards are:

Sanitizing describes the act of reducing the bacterial population on a surface by a significant number especially in kitchens. Sanitizers are the base level of antimicrobials for public health and are a 3 log reduction. (More about that later.)

Disinfecting is much stronger and will kill and prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi. Some, but not all, disinfectants can also kill viruses. For this reason—as you might imagine—there are different levels of disinfectants—limited, broad-spectrum and Hospital grade.

Levels of Disinfectants
Limited disinfectants are effective against a specific group of microorganisms such as gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus or gram-negative Salmonella enterica bacteria.

Broad-spectrum (or General) disinfectants are effective against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria (as above), and they are used in residential, commercial, institutional and other sites.

The strongest level of disinfectants are called Hospital disinfectants. These do everything limited and broad-spectrum disinfectants do in addition to being effective against the nosocomial bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. This is a bacterium you’re definitely going to need to kill if you’re cleaning in hospitals, clinics, dental offices or other health care related facilities.

When using these products, follow directions, adhering closely to the amount of contact time needed to kill a bacteria or virus.

Whether sanitizing or disinfecting, it is very important to read the label Directions For Use to determine how long the surface must remain wet in order to kill organisms. Some viruses can be eliminated in seconds, others take minutes. Bacteria can sometimes take up to 10 minutes to kill. That means you have to leave the surface wet for a full 10 minutes.

Sterilizing
Sterilization is critical to infection control and is widely used in hospitals on medical and surgical, instruments and equipment.

Types of sterilizers include autoclaves (steam under pressure) and dry heat ovens, used primarily for sterilizing medical instruments. Or sterilization by chemical means such as low temperature gas, ethylene oxide; or a liquid chemical sterilant for delicate instruments that cannot withstand high temperatures.

Efficacy
In the cleaning industry, the rating system for measuring a product’s efficacy for pathogen reduction is known as a log kill rate.

The bleach label says that it kills 99.9%, or a 3-log. A kill log measures a disinfectant’s (exponential) effectiveness. A 3-log would mean that out of 10,000,000 bacteria, 10,000 bacteria are left behind. Not only do these 10,000 bacteria reproduce, they start to build immunity to many disinfecting products. So, as they replicate, they are stronger and more dangerous. A hospital grade disinfectant kills 99.9999%, or a 6-log, leaving only 10 bacteria behind when starting at 10,000,000 bacteria similar to above. In this scenario, the 6-log kills 1,000X more bacteria than the 3-log.

Different log kills may be required for different applications. EPA guidelines are higher for disinfectants and lower for sanitizers.