Ordinary_Cleaning

Ordinary cleaning products that 'kill 99.9% of this' and '100% of that'

If a product simply makes a claim that it "kills all toilet germs", or "99.9% of germs" then you cannot really be sure of what it is capable of. This is because the term "germ" is not a scientific one, and the manufacturer could mean that it just kills viruses or bacteria, or both.

Types of disinfectant chemistries

The most widely used disinfectant chemistries are:-

• alcohol (ethanol and isopropyl alcohol).
• sodium hypochlorite (chlorine bleach).
• quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC's), of which there are a number of different types. Commonly employed QAC's includes benzalkonium chloride.
• hydrogen peroxide.

We describe these disinfecting chemistries as the active ingredients in disinfectant products. A product will contain other chemicals too, and they could be included for several reasons. These non-active ingredients could be there to stabilise the solution so that it has a long shelf-life, to give it a fragrance, to give it a cleaning capability as well as a disinfecting capability, and to protect surfaces that the disinfectant is applied to (we call these corrosion inhibitors). Sometimes the actives are used in combination as demonstrated below by reference to household name products.

Consumer product examples of the different chemistries
if you would like to discover what the active ingredients of household cleaners and disinfectants the products are, it is likely that you will be able to find it on the manufacturers' web sites. Possibly the best source of information can be found on the material safety data sheet (MSDS) for the product, this information has to be accessible to the user by law. The informationshould be publicly available and much of it would be reproduced on the product's label.

Do they do what they say they can do?

There are many products that are available to the general public which are going beyond the old style claims of "kills 99.9%" and are referencing specific organisms, such as methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), norovirus and clostridium difficile. In order to make specific claims like these, the products should have passed independent testing against those microorganisms. Therefore they should do exactly what they say on the label.

However, key information that is often never revealed is how long the disinfectant has to be in continuous contact with the microbe to destroy it. This is hugely relevant to the true effectiveness of the product and the legitimacy of the claims made for it. This is why the inadequacies of alcohol are now being recognised. Alcohol (ethanol) evaporates on contact, which is one of its positive features because the user is not left with wet hands that they need to dry and which will inevitably re-contaminate. The problem is that the time it is "wet" for on the skin's surface is too short for it work effectively (it does not work once it has evaporated).

When testing product in the laboratory, microorganisms will be added to a test tube full of alcohol and the contact between organism and active ingredient is assured. This is not so in the "real world". Additionally, alcohol has a limited effect on certain microorganisms and certainly will not kill C. difficile spores, no matter how long it is contact with them.

What can the Tristel products do?

The Deeper Clean Gel and Protect Foam are:
• non-toxic and safe to use.
• sporicidal within 30 seconds of application (this is very fast).
• capable of cleaning as well as disinfecting.
• can be used on all hard surfaces (it will discolour soft furnishings).
• classed as medical devices in uk hospitals.
• very easy to use.
• safe for the environment.
• safe for asthmatics and sufferers of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) to use as they do not produce aerosols.
• used in specialist areas of hospitals to provide the highest level of decontamination.

The wipes alone are bactericidal and are ideally used with the gel and the foam to give sporicidal disinfection levels. The foam and the gel can be applied with any normal sponge or cleaning cloth, although using them with the bactericidal tristel wipes can spread them over a larger area.

The attributes listed above are all supported by sound science, and tristel have the independent test results to back up all of their claims.

The speed of sporicidal action is perhaps the greatest thing about the tristel products, alongside the wide spectrum of microorganisms the tristel chemistry can kill. However, these attributes would count for nothing if the tristel chemistry was not safe to use.