How to Clean

CLEANING & DISINFECTION are different processes and are not necessarily interchangeable but rather complimentary.

THE CDC DEFINES household CLEANING & DISINFECTION as

• Cleaning refers to the removal of germs, dirt, and impurities from surfaces.
  • Cleaning does not kill germs, but by removing them, it lowers their numbers and the risk of spreading infection.
• Disinfecting refers to using chemicals to kill germs on surfaces.
  • This process does not necessarily clean dirty surfaces or remove germs, but by killing germs on a surface after cleaning, it can further lower the risk of spreading infection. 
    

(NOTE: Note the blind spot that the definition fails to account for non-chemical solutions such as UV-C light)

THE CDC recommendations for corona effective disinfectants includes the following list of products.

https://www.americanchemistry.com/Novel-Coronavirus-Fighting-Products-List.pdf

Cleaning effectiveness – The key points

1. Cleaning is about eliminating the oils that allow things to stick to the surface.
   • Spray apply or Mop apply
   • Agitate with paper towel (counter) or mop (floor)
2. Manage cleaning fluids carefully as cleaners remove material from surface to water to towel or mop, but they do not immediately kill the virus, so you may have a contaminated cleaning product.
3. Throw away paper towels – preferred versus microfiber towels. 
   • Re-useable towels, microfiber towels or mop heads should be store in a hard side bucket between use and transport to the washing machine, so they can be poured into the washing machine so as to avoid touching them again when reaching into a bag or basket.  Then wipe down empty bucket with MMR, let stand for at least 1 min, then rinse.
4. Mop heads
   • should be removed and washed between jobs.
   • A smelly mop is a telltale that it has not been washed frequently enough.
   • Washing machine soaps will kill the virus, but need to store and handle with care.
5. Clean hands after cleaning your surface, and after loading the washing machine.

Cleaning - For greater understanding…

Generally CLEANING, is about eliminating the oils that allow dirt, dust and other materials to “stick” to the surface. Address the oil and the other materials float-free making them easy to remove.

MARBLELIFE cleaners use a unique characteristics of surfactants which have a hydrphillic portion (water loving) and a oliophatic (oil loving) portion. By aligning the oil loving end in the oil with the water loving element outside the oil droplet can be surrounded to the point that water does not see oil but hydrophilic surfactant allowing the oil droplet to mix with the water without separating. This is the magic that makes MARBLELIFE’s cleaner so effective. This is a molecule-to-molecule interaction making it very quick. A little agitation – when we wipe the surface – helps drive contact and speeds the process.

When someone sneezes, the mucus contains oils. These droplets can settle on surface providing it depth or mass. The surfactant cleaner cuts through them and pulls them into solution. That does NOT mean that any virus has been killed, but rather that it is now in the cleaning liquid versus on the surface. This means we want to take care with the cleaning fluids.

Cleaning transfers a LIVE virus to your wipe material, BUT it QUICKLY removes it from the surface. This aligns with our quick SPRAY-and-WIPE society.

This is why you need to wash your hands after cleaning. Soap and anti-bacterial soap have sufficient strength to damage the virus, BUT as with all disinfectant procedures one must allow sufficient RESIDENCE time for it to be effective. Generally, the time to sing a verse of HAPPY BIRTHDAY or say an OUR FATHER is sufficient – but do NOT cut it short. Be sure to read the disinfection section AND the 1000 Fire Ant Example to better understand.

What is the best cleaner?

1. MARBLELIFE’s Cleaner goal is to remove everything from the surface – so we want something that does JUST that – without introducing any harmful acids.
2. Anything that seeks to provide ANOTHER benefit such as clean-and-shine, clean-and-seal or clean-and-scented has to engineer a cleaner NOT to remove everything. 
3. Such a cleaner cannot clean first then deposit – therefore it be definition is going to trap some of the material we are trying to remove. 
4. Furthermore, it is designed NOT to remove what it placed so recleaning doesn’t help but makes it worse. 
5. This is why we find we get calls to repolish a counter when in fact we need to remove the haze of the build-up.
6. MARBLELIFE’s products are designed to remove EVERYTHING from the surfaces – which is just what we need here.
   1. Select the product for your surface and we will remove any oils.  Given that the virus is communicated via mucus our product can tackle this type deposit.

EXAMPLE 1 = 1000 Fire Ants on a Counter Cleaning Example

We can dry wipe and scatter the ants everywhere. We may clear the counter but the ants are alive.

Now if using a towel or a microfiber towel for greater absorbency, we are generally doing so to avoid paper towel expense and waste – we are being green. But do you want to put a towel covered with ants back on your towel wrack? No way. Same with virus. You need to place it directly into your washing machine OR place it in a hard sided container that you can later pour into the washing machine without reaching in with your hands. Once loaded spray the container with a disinfectant.

Similarly if mopping a floor, never re-use the mop. Place the mop in the washing machine, and use a new or a clean one. How often do you change your mop? How about janitorial in your building. If a mop smells its not fresh and was not changed out.

Washing machine detergents is sufficient in time and strength to incapacitate the corona virus family.