[HN Gopher] The risks of cleaning with bleach and other disinfec...
___________________________________________________________________
The risks of cleaning with bleach and other disinfectants
Author : walterbell
Score : 95 points
Date : 2023-03-23 03:16 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| ReaderView wrote:
| [dead]
| tyronehed wrote:
| [dead]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| .. since I just used some dilute bleach to de-stink a kitchen
| sponge (yes, I will buy some more sponges next time I think of
| it):
|
| You do have to be careful. I soaked the sponge in several changes
| of water, soapy and clean. But come on! Bleach is a mainstay.
| Just don't overuse it.
| grammers wrote:
| I don't use disinfectants - not because I fear the chemicals -
| but because I believe that your immune system needs to be exposed
| to germs. It's necessary to keep it fit IMO.
| Fomite wrote:
| In such a vague sense, "exposed to germs", it doesn't matter if
| you use disinfectants or not - you'll encounter plenty in your
| daily life.
|
| The purpose of disinfectants is to target surfaces that harbor
| massive populations of them.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Everyday respiratory and doorknob germs? Sure, maybe.
|
| But salmonella from raw chicken? Or diseases spread via feces?
| I don't think so. That's not keeping you fit, it's just a risk
| of making you seriously sick for no good reason.
|
| People don't generally wipe down their whole house. But
| disinfecting kitchen prep surfaces and your toilet bowl, is
| basic hygiene/safety.
|
| Don't worry, you'll still be getting more than enough germs
| from the rest of the world.
| giantg2 wrote:
| What about iodine based sanitizers? I see those were missing from
| the list. Obviously those aren't great on things that can stain.
| I understand the risk with those is that some people are
| sensitive to iodine.
| exabrial wrote:
| Low quality, low science article.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| I like this article because it seems to be like a lot of people
| in the US equate the smell of bleach or lysol with cleanliness,
| which is far from the case and we now know, could be harmful. You
| should not let the floor dry with cleaning product, you should
| first rinse it with water.
|
| Plus, there is increasing recognition that our mucosal surfaces
| are covered by 'helpful bacteria' and when you get rid of them
| the pathogenic bacteria are in more direct contact with your
| epithelium.
|
| I don't see why a similar mechanism would not exist for inanimate
| surfaces - maybe having a thin coating of 'good dust' is better
| than letting a pathogen stick directly to the tiles?
|
| In a few years maybe cleaning products will come with a post-
| cleaning/pre-biotic solution which includes 'good bacteria' or
| 'good fungi' to form a new barrier on your clean home surfaces.
| jrootabega wrote:
| Yes, bleach is great when you dilute it properly, ventilate, wear
| gloves, and don't mix it with other chemicals, thanks article!
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I agree with the risks stated in the article but I would add that
| people on well water should still use bleach and other strong
| chemicals in their bathroom from time to time. Well water does
| not contain Chlorine bleach and there are a number of bacteria
| that can grow out of control in a bathroom when Chlorine is not
| present in the water. Some feed off the fats in soap scum,
| commonly on the bottom of the shower curtain. A home I bought
| came with this little gift and I've had to cycle through bleach,
| Lysol and high powered UVC lamps to get rid of it. And UVC lamps
| come with the risk of converting O2 to O3 _Ozone_ which requires
| good ventilation.
| hinkley wrote:
| Last time I was in a thread with homesteaders doing sketchy
| things with water, one of the voices of reason invoked
| Legionaire's Disease.
|
| Legionaire's disease being a rather nasty bacterial pneumonia,
| grows in water and needs to be aerosolized to get into the
| lungs. Like might happen when using a low-flow showerhead.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I've heard some horror stories as well. There are lab tests
| one can send off their water to test for literally hundreds
| of metals, toxins, pathogens and more. Most towns will also
| do limited testing. There are also bacteria test kits on
| Amazon but they only test for a few things.
|
| My well tested clean but I still intend to shock it with
| chlorine. The bummer is that this is such an old well they
| did not make it easy to shock it without pulling the pump but
| I am going to replace the pump anyway because I think it was
| installed in the 80's.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I added a chlorine injection pump to my well that adds a little
| bit whenever the main pump runs. Water quality very much
| improved.
| vuln wrote:
| Liquid Chlorine worked the best in my use case. Bought a house
| in Florida with no bathroom exhaust fan. Fought tooth and nail
| to keep it at bay. Squeegeeing the walls, apply after shower
| mildew/mold inhibitor. Nothing worked.
|
| Liquid Chlorine did. Open bathroom window, placed a fan in
| front of it and sprayed down the entire shower heavily. Yes the
| smell I was powerful, I wore a respirator. It's been over a
| year and we haven't had it come back at all. We still squeegee
| and apply mildew/mold inhibitor and we now have a very high
| powered exhaust vent in the master bathroom.
| kube-system wrote:
| I try not to spray bleach when I can avoid it -- wiping or
| pouring keeps more of the bleach on the surface instead of
| floating around in the air.
| nilram wrote:
| Similar situation, I have a bathroom with an exhaust fan but
| no openable windows. Besides the squeegee religion, I have a
| circulation fan on a timer that I let run for a couple hours
| to dry things out.
| sclarisse wrote:
| Consider cleaning with Pine-Sol too. It's a mold/mildew
| inhibitor by its nature.
| ben7799 wrote:
| I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create pressure
| for resistance because of their nature.
|
| It is interesting they talk about benzalkonium chloride, that
| stuff absolutely destroys my hands.
|
| When the FDA shut down triclosan all the soaps for paranoid
| people switched to Benzalklonium Chloride. That stuff absolutely
| destroy my skin. No matter what anyone complains about they won't
| stop putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our
| office. I can go in with my skin fine, if I wash my hands 3x in a
| day they are almost bleeding by the end of the day.
|
| Also interesting Benzalkloium Chloride last time I looked was in
| limbo with the FDA, they couldn't decide whether to officially
| approve it or ban it. They know it causes contact dermatitis. It
| is currently in a state where the manufacturers are preparing
| evidence to get it approved but yet it is allowed to be on the
| market.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create
| pressure for resistance because of their nature."
|
| I think the most famous example is that bleach (at least at
| normal cleaning concentrations) doesn't kill MRSA. In theory
| this would give it an advantage.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| There's just no way that's true. Bleach rips the electrons
| right off. MRSA isn't going to develop immunity to that.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Where did you get that information?
|
| "List H: Registered Antimicrobial Products with Label Claims
| Against Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
| and/or Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecalis/faecium
| (VRE)"
|
| "5813-50 Sodium Hypochlorite Ultra Clorox Brand Regular
| Bleach Clorox co."
|
| * https://www.epa.gov/pesticide-registration/list-h-
| registered...
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm having trouble seeing the concentration for that
| product. I assume that's full strength 5-7%. If you look at
| others on that list, you'll see one at 2% sodium
| hypochlorite rhat requires a contact time of 5 minutes.
| Most disinfecting products have less than 5% bleach or are
| not applied for 5 minutes before removal.
| atkailash wrote:
| [dead]
| cratermoon wrote:
| Longer kill time is still killing. MRSA is not any more
| resistant to bleach than other pathogens.
| giantg2 wrote:
| How many people do you know actually leave a product on a
| surface for 5+ minutes? If you didn't use it properly,
| then you didn't actually kill it.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| P1: Water doesn't make hot tea when combined with tea
| leaves.
|
| P2: Yes it does, see <points to directions on how to make
| tea>
|
| P1: Most people don't bother waiting until the water
| boils, they just pour it on from the faucet.
| Fomite wrote:
| C. difficile spores or norovirus particles would be better
| examples, imo
| MengerSponge wrote:
| I've been known to carry a small bottle of Dr Bronner's for
| this reason. Also, the bleaching agents in a lot of commercial
| paper towels also chew up my hands. I'll carry a few
| handkerchiefs in the winter too.
| cma wrote:
| > Also, the bleaching agents in a lot of commercial paper
| towels also chew up my hands.
|
| Are you saying if you wet a commercial paper towel with plain
| water and drop it on some cloth it will bleach the fabric?
| Why would the bleaching agents still be active any more than
| with printer paper or toilet paper? Wouldn't these be a
| hazard if someone wiped ammonia with them?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Yeah I'm confused about that too. Not to mention most
| commercial paper towels are the brown unbleached kind.
| Meanwhile toilet paper I've never seen unbleached...
|
| But there is something I've also always found very mildly
| irritating specifically about unbleached brown paper
| towels, as well as uncoated corrugated cardboard. Just kind
| of like a micro-scratchiness.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| You can bring in your own soap, either in a dispenser that you
| keep at your desk and take to the bathroom whenever you need
| it, or use a travel-sized bottle that you can keep in a pocket.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Whenever anyone says "you can just," they're probably being
| unreasonable and not understanding the problem.
|
| I wouldn't tell someone to bring their own soap unless
| they're travelling to a 3rd world country. It's quite
| reasonable to expect basic hygiene products to not destroy
| your hands.
|
| > No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop
| putting it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office.
|
| Sounds like someone in HR just is ignoring the requests.
| Someone should call OSHA.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| I've done it or I wouldn't have recommended it.
| Am4TIfIsER0ppos wrote:
| I take my own soap when I travel for work in western europe
| because you cannot rely on these crappy airbnbs my boss
| rents to have any when you get there.
| JohnFen wrote:
| You'd hate my workplace. The water there is unspeakably
| foul (I'm sure it's dangerous to drink), so I bring in jugs
| of my own.
|
| > Whenever anyone says "you can just," they're probably
| being unreasonable and not understanding the problem.
|
| Or they're offering a solution that they don't view as
| being overly difficult.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I think they will create pressure but having chlorine rip apart
| your cell membrane seems different enough from disrupting
| pathways (or something else like an antibiotic does) that it
| seems as though it would be considerably harder to evolve
| against.
|
| There are things like microbial cysts that are already
| protective in these cases but the tradeoffs for the organize
| are pretty large to adopt something like that.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cyst
| Fomite wrote:
| There's concerns for resistance in some non-bleach compounds,
| especially chlorhexidine.
|
| Bleach though remains pretty much microbial napalm, with some
| exceptions (prions, norovirus & C. difficile spores at the
| dilutions a lot of people use).
|
| By far the bigger risk for bleach, IMO, is chemical exposure
| hazards.
| riffic wrote:
| it's easy to accidentally create chlorine gas (this will
| easily and painfully kill people) and if anyone read the
| article that's exactly what the concern is here with bleach.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > No matter what anyone complains about they won't stop putting
| it in all the bathroom soap dispensers in our office.
|
| Call OSHA, or at least threaten to do so.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I would recommend against threatening to call OSHA. If you're
| going to do it, just do it (and be sure they keep you
| anonymous).
|
| Retaliation is a thing.
| jrootabega wrote:
| I am grateful you mentioned this. I recently got frustrated
| wondering why my hands seem to dry, crack, and bleed so much
| when I stay over at a certain household. It really makes a lot
| of other things difficult for days when that happens. I believe
| they buy antibacterial hand soap, and their water makes it hard
| to rinse off completely. I will now make sure to bring my own
| when I visit.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I don't think there's a way of killing microbiota that creates
| no pressure for resistance, that's just evolution.
|
| Of course some adaptations are more likely than others, but
| from a pedantic point of view "use sparingly" is all we have.
| angst_ridden wrote:
| yes, but the difference between having your biological
| processes disrupted and being smashed with a rock are pretty
| significant, and the evolutionary responses are quite
| different.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I think in this case it destroys the cell walls, so they'd
| have to completely evolve how cells work in order to evolve.
| Thus by definition, if they evolved to survive these
| substances, they'd be an entirely different organism.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| > they'd be an entirely different organism.
|
| Yeah, they'd be archaea instead of bacteria, which is a
| huge taxonomic leap, but they'd probably make you just as
| sick as before.
|
| The naming hierarchies of taxonomy are somewhat justified
| within eukarya because we have family trees, but when you
| only have one parent and get your genetic diversity via
| horizontal gene transfer with your peers, taxonomy is just
| the words of silly humans.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if mutations happen that take
| populations across that boundary all the time. It happened
| at least once, what are the odds of it happening only once?
|
| -----
|
| New-cell-wall technology aside, I think there are other
| reasons to avoid frequently creating unnecessary sterile
| zones. At those zones' boundaries you're creating
| situations that favor rapid recolonization, neighbors-be-
| damned, potentially at the expense of equilibria-seeking
| behavior. Fewer Ghandis more Ghengis Khans.
|
| There's a great radio-lab podcast (titled Argentine
| Invasion) which describes how conditions like these
| (regarding a floodplain, in this case) lead to the
| evolution of an especially ruthless species of ant. It
| seems likely to me that you'd see the same thing in
| bacteria populations that are frequently partially
| obliterated.
| pasquinelli wrote:
| anything evolving in any way at all makes it a different
| organism. evolution is the word for organisms changing at
| the population level.
| withinboredom wrote:
| I don't think you understand. Like it would have to
| evolve into an entirely different class of life, it would
| no longer be "bacteria" thus "bacteria" can never become
| resistant to it because to become resistant means that it
| is no longer "bacteria"
| fvold wrote:
| You can't outgrow your lineage in evolution. We're
| monkeys. KFC is made of dinosaurs. Anything descended
| from bacteria would still be bacteria.
| withinboredom wrote:
| They would change taxonomy to archea (see MatrixMan's
| comment) thus no longer being bacteria.
|
| These are all human issues, the "archea-bacteria"
| wouldn't care what we called it, but fun to think about.
| [deleted]
| Robotbeat wrote:
| One approach is just to starve it of resources such as food
| or water.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| That would promote spore formation in spore-forming
| bacteria. And spores are more resistant to damage than
| active bacteria. And spores can stay viable for years.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Fun fact, if you have spores you can create the
| conditions for them to become active for 24 hours or so.
| Then you can use a sanitizing method that's less intense.
| This is sometimes used in mushroom cultivation.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > I don't think there's a way of killing microbiota that
| creates no pressure for resistance, that's just evolution.
|
| In order for evolution to function[1], there needs to be
| differential survival. That is to say, some variants of
| bacteria must survive at greater or lesser rates than other
| variants.
|
| For something as strong as bleach, given sufficient
| concentration and working time, it's not clear to me that
| that effect exists. My understanding is that it's so powerful
| and it's means of action is so robust that is just kills
| everything equally.
|
| ---
|
| 1. Yes, technically evolution never stops and always
| functions. I guess a more precise way to word that is: in
| order for there to be an observable evolutionary effect.
| [deleted]
| kube-system wrote:
| Yes, but if it is something extremely devastating, it might
| take millions of years of consistent use. Maybe e coli can
| figure out how to live in an autoclave after a million years,
| but humans will probably stop using autoclaves before then.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Depending on the temperature, prions can survive at the
| lower ranges. 2.5% bleach solution will denatured them
| though.
| kube-system wrote:
| Prions are not living and do not evolve.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Well, it seems that you can have new prion diseases
| emerge. Not _technically_ evolution since it 's not
| reproduction, but still a similar theory where new
| proteins or folds could create more resilient structures.
| Even for true evolution you're looking at variations in
| sequences leading to both better and worse states.
|
| The point is, not all autoclaves destroy everything
| today.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| For microbes bleach is the equivalent of a cluster bomb. If
| you know it's coming you can evolve to decrease the odds of
| it killing you, but if you don't know it's coming there's
| nothing you can do.
|
| One thing some bacteria can do is create spores. These are a
| main reason various disinfectants, including dilute bleach
| mixtures, say they kill 99.999% of germs, and not 100%.
| Spores are highly, though not totally, resistant to damage.
| They can even survive autoclaving at standard autoclave
| temperatures and pressures. But making spores is the
| equivalent of sticking baby Superman in a pod and sending him
| to Earth. Spores are the next generation, the adult
| generation still dies.
|
| There are apparently better chlorine disinfectants than
| bleach which show good activity against spores: https://www.c
| dc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection...
|
| > Alternative compounds that release chlorine and are used in
| the health-care setting include demand-release chlorine
| dioxide, sodium dichloroisocyanurate, and chloramine-T. The
| advantage of these compounds over the hypochlorites is that
| they retain chlorine longer and so exert a more prolonged
| bactericidal effect.
|
| > In vitro suspension tests showed that solutions containing
| about 140 ppm chlorine dioxide achieved a reduction factor
| exceeding 10^6 of S. aureus in 1 minute and of Bacillus
| atrophaeus spores in 2.5 minutes in the presence of 3 g/L
| bovine albumin. The potential for damaging equipment requires
| consideration because long-term use can damage the outer
| plastic coat of the insertion tube. In another study,
| chlorine dioxide solutions at either 600 ppm or 30 ppm killed
| Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare within 60 seconds after
| contact but contamination by organic material significantly
| affected the microbicidal properties.
| cratermoon wrote:
| > One thing some bacteria can do is create spores.
|
| Spores and biofilms. Biofilms not only protect against
| antibiotics but also bleach. Some of them repel water
| better than Teflon.
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1011033108 "The
| biofilm surface remains nonwetting against up to 80%
| ethanol as well as other organic solvents and commercial
| biocides across a large and clinically important
| concentration range."
| sometimeshuman wrote:
| "I thought bleach and alcohol were thought to not create
| pressure for resistance because of their nature."
|
| Agreed, and I missed if this article stated otherwise. Also we
| have been adding chlorine (the active ingredient in bleach) to
| our water supply for over 100 years ago and that experiment
| hasn't produced resistant microbes AFAIK.
| Animats wrote:
| After all the clickbait, here's the EPA's Safer Ingredients List
| for antibacterials.[1]
|
| * Chitosan
|
| * Citric acid, anhydrous
|
| * Ethanol
|
| * Hydrogen peroxide
|
| * Isopropanol
|
| * L-Lactic acid
|
| * Peracetic acid
|
| * Sodium bisulfate
|
| Citric acid cleaners are widely available and cheap. They work as
| as degreasers, and they are not flammable.
|
| [1] https://www.epa.gov/saferchoice/safer-ingredients#searchList
| insaneirish wrote:
| From the article: "The chemicals in bleach "are persistent in the
| environment, and they're also very corrosive," she added."
|
| This seems incomplete at best and disingenuous at worst.
|
| It's my understanding that chlorine bleach breaks down into
| oxygen, NaCl, and water.
|
| So, sure, you can argue that salt water is persistent in our
| environment and also corrosive, but that statement strikes me the
| same way as how people have long warned about the dangers of ever
| present dihydrogen monoxide in almost everything we consume these
| days.
| 01100011 wrote:
| It seems NaOCl is capable of forming various products when
| reacting with other chemicals common to the home environment:
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.estlett.0c00573
|
| Whether such products rise to a level of concern is another
| story.
| [deleted]
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| This jumped out at me too. If it's very reactive (and it is)
| then it can't possibly be that long-lived.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Yes, it's a very silly statement. That said, the chlorine
| that you breathe in when the bleach that you cleaned your
| bathtub with evaporates can't be good for you. Worse if you
| spray the stuff (and how we all made fun of Trump and his
| nebulized hydrogen peroxide).
| gamblor956 wrote:
| [flagged]
| flavius29663 wrote:
| and it breaks down on it's own, pretty quickly, especially when
| hit by sun UV rays, which is why you have to chlorinate your
| pool so often. It also gets diluted easily by water.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| This is why you add cyanuric acid to the pool when you're
| setting it up. The sun can destroy an entire pool's chlorine
| in a few hours, but CYA will help slow that process down
| significantly, so that you can keep up with a chlorine
| generator or chlorine dispenser.
| hippich wrote:
| Afaik, cya also lowers chlorine ability to disinfect. So it
| is balancing act. And since cya does not break down, one
| have to be careful to not overdo tablets and such. I
| switched to liquid chlorine for that reason
| achenatx wrote:
| and then liquid chlorine is impossible to find and
| doubled in price, so I ended up with salt water.
| WirelessGigabit wrote:
| Which is why you get a salt-water pool. So much better!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| A saltwater pool IS a chlorine pool. The difference is that
| instead of adding sodium hypochlorite from a jug, you add
| salt to the water and use electrolysis (chlorine generator)
| to create chlorine gas and hydrogen.
|
| Properly maintained pool water will have the same chlorine
| level either way. The "chlorine pool" water won't have
| quite as much dissolved salt, but over time it does build
| up.
| cpach wrote:
| In the 90s in Sweden (possibly other countries as well) there
| was a campaign to get people to stop using bleach (i.e. sodium
| hypochlorite). However, I have not been able to find any
| sources that could prove that use of bleach in the home would
| contribute to any environmental damage.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| A campaign from who? Im also a swede so I grew up with the
| "DRINK MILK OR UR GONNA DIE!!" campaigns from the "neutral"
| milk lobby.
| radicalcentrist wrote:
| Is that on the ground floor of the neutral milk hotel?
| seiferteric wrote:
| I thought I remembered reading something that some amount can
| be converted into chloramines and that those don't break down
| quickly.
| vondur wrote:
| Chloramines are used to disinfect residential water supplies.
| I believe if you mix chlorine and ammonia, you get cyanogen
| chloride, which is toxic.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Doesn't most bleach contain stabilizers? Perhaps that part of
| it. The other possibility is that when bleach reacts with stuff
| it can form other, more stable compounds.
|
| Either way, I generally agree with your position. Bleach tends
| to break down pretty quickly compared to many other things.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Cyanuric acid is the stabilizer used in pool chlorine, but
| even it breaks down relatively quickly in the environment.
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4451360/
|
| Also if chlorine is stabilized by cyanuric acid, it is no
| longer active in the environment - basically the cyanuric
| acid locks up the chlorine in an equilibrium so that it slow
| releases, which is why it's widely used in outdoor pools.
| Otherwise UV exposure would cause the chlorine to offgas
| rapidly and you'd need to add chlorine every hour or so
| during the day, which is obviously effort and cost
| prohibitive.
| insaneirish wrote:
| > Doesn't most bleach contain stabilizers?
|
| Not sure.
|
| SDS for Clorox Regular Bleach:
| https://www.thecloroxcompany.com/wp-
| content/uploads/cloroxre...
|
| It lists a single ingredient: sodium hypochlorite.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Ah, I might have been thinking about pool chlorine and some
| outdoor cleaners.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Pool chlorine is just slightly more concentrated bleach.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You might be thinking of certain types of pool chlorine
| tablets that include cyanuric acid. Really a terrible way
| to treat a pool, honestly, it builds up CYA in the water
| and eventually you can't get enough active chlorine to
| safely disinfect. And the only realistic way to reduce
| CYA is drain the pool partly or completely and refill.
| Properly maintained pool water only needs basic
| chemicals, and pure sodium hypochlorite (unless you're
| going to use a chlorine generator, in which case you'll
| end up buying a few hundred pounds of salt when you fill
| the pool).
| thoughtISawA2 wrote:
| Guess the SDS only covers components that require special
| handling? They have a page that mentions stabilizers:
| https://www.clorox.com/learn/what-is-bleach-what-are-
| active-...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| If you ever have to move into a cabin in the American Southwest
| that's been a mouse and rodent playground, saturating it with a
| solution of 10% chlorine bleach in water is not a bad idea
| (hantavirus is the general issue in that case). You will want to
| rinse with a lot of water to get residue out, though.
|
| However, such scorched-earth tactics are a bad idea on a regular
| basis, just use simple non-toxic cleaning agents like sodium
| percarbonate aka 'chlorine-free oxygen bleach', sodium citrate
| (basically citric acid + sodium bicarbonate cooked together in
| solution), and simple soap (vegetable oil + lye). The latter two
| are not hard to make yourself if you want to, just find a
| reliable recipe and instruction set online (gloves and eye
| protection recommended).
| jollyllama wrote:
| I've heard a one-time ozone generator cleaning is also good for
| this
| JohnFen wrote:
| > and simple soap
|
| People really underestimate the antimicrobial properties of
| just plain old soap. Soap is bad news to a lot of common
| microbes, and kills them dead.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Do you mean .5% chlorine bleach? The stuff they sell in the
| store is 5-7%.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Bleach wasn't commonly used for bathroom cleaning in the US ore-
| covid? It's quite common in Europe and much of the rest of the
| world...
| pixl97 wrote:
| Either bleach or some other powerful cleaner was.
|
| Quite often you hear about some some younger adult working at a
| low paying job using bleach to clean, and they decide to mix
| some other cleaner in because it's not working well enough, and
| there is a reaction that hospitalized them or kills them.
| 123pie123 wrote:
| I've worked in a few cleaning jobs as a student in the UK and
| I've always had to a have a mini induction on how to use
| cleaning fluids, which is v basic - don't mix certain types
| of cleaning fluids
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Bleach + ammonia? Chloramine. Bad. Bleach + peroxide?
| Exothermic reaction that produces oxygen. Bad. Bleach + an
| acid like vinegar? Chlorine gas. Bad. Bleach + alcohol?
| Chloroform. Bad.
| cratermoon wrote:
| In short, that chlorine atom _really_ wants to be somewhere
| else, and nearly anything, even water, will break the bond.
| So now there 's chlorine ions floating around, and chlorine
| has the 2nd highest electronegativity after fluorine. It's
| so reactive it will even form compounds with many of the
| noble gases.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I'm in the US, and myself and most people I know well enough to
| know this about them have been using bleach for bathroom
| cleaning for my entire life.
| malfist wrote:
| I was raised using primarily bathroom cleaners like scrubbing
| bubbles and 409. Both of which are QATs instead of bleach.
|
| As an adult I've experimented with using bleach for cleaning,
| and prefer it most of the time, it's just better.
| kube-system wrote:
| Most of the stuff in the bathroom cleaning aisle has a
| "with bleach" version
|
| https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/3189aa67-fa2c-4ad1-ae01-7b
| 6...
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| Scrubbing Bubbles contains microplastic abrasives.
| ben7799 wrote:
| Yes, it was always common for cleaning in the US.
| eric-hu wrote:
| I worked in a restaurant kitchen in 2008. Every food station
| had to prepare a sani-bucket with about a teaspoon of bleach in
| a gallon of water. We used those to wipe down our food stations
| between preparations. I believe they're required by US health
| code law.
|
| The dish washing sink also had 3 basins. Wash, rinse and
| sanitize. The third had water and a small amount of bleach.
| Again, required by restaurant health code law.
|
| (I realize after writing this comment you specified bathroom
| cleaning, but these stories still stand. Food prep environments
| are held to a higher standard than bathrooms.)
| amalcon wrote:
| It absolutely was and is. The "potential to produce toxic
| gases" thing the article mentions is very well known, though
| the usual advice to avoid it (never mix two different cleaners)
| was briefly a little more difficult to practice due to
| shortages.
| hinkley wrote:
| Honestly I've known about the ammonia thing since college or
| right after, but I just learned about vinegar and bleach a
| year ago. If you put vinegar in your laundry you probably
| shouldn't use the bleach dispenser to do it.
| realworldperson wrote:
| [dead]
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think it was pretty common.
|
| What wasn't common is they many people starting using lots of
| bleach or bleach containing products all over the place due to
| covid being though to be spread via fromites in the early
| days/months of the pandemic.
| werdnapk wrote:
| Ammonia is a common cleaner as well in parts of the world as
| well.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Sorry, but saying hydrogen peroxide is safer than bleach and
| therefore you should swap them is leaving out a massive caveat.
|
| It is still corrosive and an irritant. Yes, the decomposition
| products are much less of a problem, but thats kinda less of the
| point.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| This strikes me as more of a scare piece than useful. Certainly
| overuse of cleaning agents is a problem. But that sounds like
| more of a problem with education or a mental issue than a problem
| with the cleaning agents, per se.
|
| I used to swim all the time in chlorinated pools as a kid. The
| only consequences were hair getting bleached to an greenish tint,
| and irritated eyes.
|
| Sodium and chloride are the constituents of plain 'ol salt. You
| body deals with it well. Your stomach acid of hydrochloric acid,
| and it doesn't seem to be an issue, either.
|
| I'm not worried about bleach at all, as long as it's used with
| common sense. So don't go overboard. Dont drink it. Don't take a
| both in concented bleach. I'm sure you'll be fine.
|
| I'm sure that there are exceptions, like maybe the fumes are too
| much for someone with asthma or whatever. There used to be
| problems with dioxins that were the redult of bleaching agents.
| But, again, if people exercise common sense, then I'm sure that
| society will muddle along.
| hinkley wrote:
| If you had friends with asthma, the pool was something they had
| to do in small doses. The lung irritation doesn't affect most
| people that much, but it also depends on how many people are
| peeing in the pool.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > Sodium and chloride are the constituents of plain 'ol salt.
| You body deals with it well.
|
| Sure, you can make any substance sound innocuous or harmful by
| reducing it to its elemental constituents and then comparing
| them to other substances. The structure and form make the
| poison (along with the dose).
|
| I could tell you that benzene is "just" carbon and hydrogen,
| and your body deals with those well. Except benzene is
| extremely carcinogenic. Unlike, for contrast, toluene, which
| has a very similar chemical formula but is not carcinogenic,
| due to a different structure.
|
| Heck, your body "deals with" oxygen well. If you're referring
| to diatomic oxygen, that is - O2. Your body does not like O3,
| even though that's also "just" oxygen.
|
| Furthermore, you're conflating chlor _ide_ with chlor _ine_.
| Chloride is a single chlorine anion joined in an ionic bond (or
| dissociated aqueous, more commonly). Bleach contains a chlor
| _ite_ anion - the entire anion is negative, but chlorine is
| itself covalently bonded to another nonmetal (oxygen). The
| properties of specific nonmetals as part of a larger compound
| are completely different from the properties of those nonmetals
| in isolated ions.
|
| Both have elemental chlorine in them, but they're quite
| different chemically.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| The tone of your response is, like the original article, more
| of a scare piece. And I'm not trying to make bleach "sound
| innocuous". Bleach, when used with common sense and whatever
| guidelines that apply, is _actually_ innocuous. It 's just a
| fact that some substances are actually innocuous.
|
| Bleach has been used for cleaning and disinfecting for a very
| long time... people have used it daily for years on end in
| their jobs as dishwashers or whatever. If it was such a
| problem then people would have noticed the higher cancer
| rates, or whatever bleach-related diseases that actually
| occurr. The fact is that people in the US have had small
| amounts of bleach in their drinking water and it hasn't been
| an issue. People clean with bleach every day. It's used in
| laundry and all sorts of other things.
|
| As a kid I swam in some over-bleached pools and it didn't
| hurt me or any of my friends. The same thing happened in
| swimming pools across the nation. I'm sure that we swallowed
| some of it as we swam, too. It wasn't a big deal then. It's
| not a big deal now.
|
| I'm not a member of a multinational bleach consortium trying
| to trick you into using bleach against your better interests.
| If you don't want to use it then go ahead and stop.
|
| The article talks about problems with bleach if you're a
| "professional cleaner". Ok, fine. Maybe pro-cleaners should
| have better ventillation sometimes, or respirators, or
| something else. Maybe they are using a very strong bleach and
| that's the problem. Maybe it depends on what they are
| cleaning and there is some reaction that causes problems. All
| are worth taking precautions against. But a regular person
| who occasionally uses bleach to sanitize dishes or clean a
| bathroom or whiten laundry? I just don't believe there is any
| hazard worth worrying about.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > when used with common sense
|
| I think this is the reason this piece and more cautious
| advices ("scare mongering") are delivered. What is common
| sense in this case ? You seem gt have a good sense of
| what's innocuous volumes and not going overboard. Does your
| neighbor share that sense ? (is it "common" ?). Do the
| people 20 blocks down your house share that sense ?
|
| I'd argue for better or worse, very few things still stay
| "common" at a large enough scale without repeating the
| message often enough.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > As a kid I swam in some over-bleached pools
|
| Fun fact -- public pools are typically under-bleached, not
| over. That's why they smell so bad. The strong smell is
| coming from the chloramines generated when chlorine
| neutralizes organics, like pee. If they were able to
| maintain better chlorine levels they'd actually smell
| _better_. That 's difficult though with the sheer number of
| children mistreating the water at a typical public pool.
|
| A well maintained home swimming pool should have a nearly
| undetectable amount of chlorine odor to the water. Hot tubs
| are a little more difficult because they have a small
| version of the same bather load problem a public pool has.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > Calls to poison control centers about cleaning chemicals also
| increased during the pandemic, primarily for accidental or
| intentional ingestion.
|
| I seem to recall a prominent American recommending the ingestion
| of bleach as a treatment for Coronavirus.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Man Dies, Woman Hospitalized After Taking Form Of Chloroquine
| To Prevent COVID-19 https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-
| live-updates/2020/0...
|
| In this case, chloroquine phosphate, a common antimalarial, but
| also found in tablet form to treat fish tanks. The FDA even put
| out a statement about it. https://www.fda.gov/animal-
| veterinary/product-safety-informa...
| retox wrote:
| rent free
| misssocrates wrote:
| Is there a transcript of that? The exact sentence please.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-
| statements/re...
|
| He doesn't literally say "inject bleach" [EDIT: and also
| doesn't say: "ingest bleach"]. What transpires is this--
|
| Acting DHS undersecretary Bryan:
|
| > We're also testing disinfectants readily available. We've
| tested bleach, we've tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus,
| specifically in saliva or in respiratory fluids. And I can
| tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes;
| isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and
| that's with no manipulation, no rubbing -- just spraying it
| on and letting it go. You rub it and it goes away even
| faster. We're also looking at other disinfectants,
| specifically looking at the COVID-19 virus in saliva.
|
| (and also some stuff about UV light killing Covid)
|
| Then, slightly later:
|
| > THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill
| [Undersecretary Bryan] a question that probably some of you
| are thinking of, if you're totally into that world, which I
| find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body
| with a tremendous -- whether it's ultraviolet or just very
| powerful light -- and I think you said that that hasn't been
| checked, but you're going to test it. And then I said,
| supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you
| can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I
| think you said you're going to test that too. It sounds
| interesting.
|
| > ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: We'll get to the right folks
| who could.
|
| > THE PRESIDENT: Right. And then I see the disinfectant,
| where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there
| a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or
| almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and
| it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be
| interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to
| use medical doctors with. But it sounds -- it sounds
| interesting to me.
|
| Then a question about it:
|
| > Q But I -- just, can I ask about -- the President mentioned
| the idea of cleaners, like bleach and isopropyl alcohol you
| mentioned. There's no scenario that that could be injected
| into a person, is there? I mean --
|
| > ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: No, I'm here to talk about
| the findings that we had in the study. We won't do that
| within that lab and our lab. So --
|
| > THE PRESIDENT: It wouldn't be through injection. We're
| talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an
| area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. But it certainly
| has a big effect if it's on a stationary object.
|
| So, I mean... he kinda does, in a completely dumbshit way,
| suggest we should explore injecting bleach (or maybe
| isopropyl alcohol? It's always hard to tell WTF the guy's
| talking about) but then walks it back when actually
| questioned on it, but _then_ finished by leaving open the
| idea of exploring... something? "Maybe it works, maybe it
| doesn't"--maybe _fucking what_ works? Impossible to know.
| "We're talking about through almost a cleaning" well, yeah,
| we know that works for, you know, _not_ the inside of people,
| so... did you or did you not mean trying to get bleach or
| isopropyl alcohol inside people? Because the first statement
| _clearly_ meant that, but then you said, not, but now "maybe
| it works", but _what_ maybe works? And now my head hurts.
| "Or almost a cleaning". I mean. What?
|
| Anywho, IIRC from watching this when it happened, he _does
| not_ seem to be making a joke with the initial comment about
| using tanning beds or household cleaning product injections
| to fight covid, or whatever the shit he had in mind when he
| said that craziness.
|
| [EDIT] Though, to be clear, he _does not_ say people ought to
| go inject or drink bleach. He just suggests he 's going to
| have government scientists look into the idea, which is
| _hilariously_ stupid but also not as bad as it 's sometimes
| made out to be.
| [deleted]
| syntaxing wrote:
| Serious question, what do people clean their bathroom with
| then...I used to never use bleach but it's the most effective
| thing to clean bath and toilets.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I've purchased a little water electrolyzer from Amazon to use as
| a bleach alternative, and it seems to work quite well. I wonder
| why this isn't more popular. A little less convenient (takes a
| little time to make, shelf life of days) and more upfront cost
| perhaps?
| cobbal wrote:
| As I understand it, that's just a way to create bleach, and
| bleach itself isn't particularly expensive:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochlorination
| neonate wrote:
| http://web.archive.org/web/20230323080410/https://www.nytime...
|
| https://archive.ph/7PjyQ
| ericbarrett wrote:
| What the New York Times thinks will happen: Enhanced labeling and
| regulation of dangerous chemicals in household cleaners leads to
| a safer world for all.
|
| What will actually happen: Common chemicals like bleach, borax,
| vinegar, and ammonia will be banned from direct sale to
| consumers; you'll be forced to buy whatever brand name from one
| of two major manufacturers, with as little insight into its
| composition and dangers as you have today. A decade from now
| they'll run an expose about the multi-generational environmental
| impact of some exotic chemical these products used. Lawyers get
| paid $millions in a class action. You get lung cancer and a
| coupon for $5.95. Cleaning products still cost $10 per quart.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > What the New York Times thinks will happen: Enhanced labeling
| and regulation of dangerous chemicals in household cleaners
| leads to a safer world for all.
|
| > What will actually happen: Common chemicals like bleach,
| borax, vinegar, and ammonia will be banned from direct sale to
| consumers;
|
| This is a lifestyle piece providing basic safety information
| for common household goods. It's quite a stretch to imply _any_
| intention of a regulatory outcome for that, let alone one that
| somehow bans common cooking ingredients.
|
| Not to mention that the only mention of vinegar is as an aside,
| a (correct) warning that two common cleaning materials should
| not be used _simultaneously_.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Glad I'm not the only one who deciphers similar takes from
| these latent articles
| [deleted]
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