Sanitation Protocol

[dragonlady7]

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So in the summers I work in a poultry slaughterhouse that’s state-inspected, and in the winters I work at a retail store, and my retail coworkers have been… good-heartedly doing some absolute bullshit in their desire to “sanitize” the store. So, prompted by that, I thought I’d just write up the method we use to clean and sanitize the slaughterhouse, in case you, like my retail coworkers, are a little confused but got the spirit.

This also is prompted by this great post I reblogged yesterday, with the info about using bleach. You must dilute bleach to sanitize! 

(I read an explainer about this for alcohol the other day, actually– too high-proof an alcohol in your sanitizer, and it sears the outside of the microbe but fails to penetrate and neutralize the interior, and bingo you have a surviving microbe and have not achieved sanitation. You must follow dilution directions, and do not fall prey to the fallacy that stronger is better– stronger may just be completely ineffective.)

So the #1 thing to understand about sanitizing is that you must first CLEAN the surface. Bleach will not kill microbes embedded in organic matter. In other words, you must PHYSICALLY REMOVE gunk first.

What do you use? Soap and water. Our formula is a teaspoon of dish soap in a 32-oz spray bottle of water, which you liberally spray onto your surface, and then scrub with a clean nylon-bristled brush in a circular motion with hard pressure. We do this even on clean-looking surfaces, but on a visibly soiled surface, you do it until there’s no more physical dirt left. This may take quite a lot of elbow grease. 

You rinse that down (we use warm water where possible simply because it mechanically loosens the soap better, but cold works fine), and let it dry. There must be no soap residue remaining, as the residue could trap organic matter which would then shield microbes from the sanitizing solution.

Now, to sanitize, you take your bleach– we use a tablespoon in a 32-oz sprayer filled with water, as our ratio, shake it up well and make it new every couple of days because it loses potency over time and that’s actually the secret of bleach, it doesn’t build up a residue because it oxidizes itself out of existence after a couple of days, and that’s part of the mechanism of how it sanitizes– and you spray it onto your dry surface until it is evenly coated and damp, and then you step away and DO NOT WIPE, you let it dry in place. 

(If your clean surface is wet, guess what that means– that water’s diluting your bleach further, so your dilution ratio’s going to be off. The ratio’s important! Don’t spray bleach onto puddles, it won’t do shit. Dry your surface. We have a squeegee we use for this. Oh, also, you have to have a wash sink of soapy water so your scrub brushes and squeegee are also scrupulously clean for this whole process, and a tub of the dilute bleach to soak your tools in so they’re sanitary before use. I don’t have the room for that in my house and wish I did!)

So– you can see, this is only going to be suitable for the kinds of surfaces they let you have, in a state-inspected slaughterhouse. Stainless steel, nonreactive plastic, concrete. Not metal or fabric, not really even Formica– bleach will eventually discolor it, so there are other solutions they use in hospitals and the like. 

However, knowing the protocol should be useful, regardless– you cannot sanitize a physically soiled surface, there is no sanitizer in the world that is going to magically penetrate quantities of organic material to kill the microbes inside. It just won’t work. Scrub that biofilm off of there. Mechanical cleaning is the only way to make the slightest damn difference. THEN you can sanitize.

I tell you, if I see one more well-intentioned coworker spritzing disinfectant onto a visibly dirt-encrusted surface…

I have a handheld steamer I might bring in to use on the soft furnishings, but fortunately we don’t have many of those. Console yourself– the COVID-19 virus can remain viable a shorter time on porous surfaces– I think it’s like a day on cardboard or fabric (which is a damn long time, but), and I’ve heard figures of three to nine days on hard surfaces, so those are what you want to focus on cleaning anyway.

Comments

[dine]

this is great info, which I fear too many people lack. would it be ok to link to, or summarize (with credit, of course), this post?

[dragonlady7]

Oh, sure, of course!

[dine]

greatness. thanks - I'm linking, and will be posting a very slightly edited version under a cut as well

[resonant]

What are your experiences or thoughts on vinegar for ordinary household cleaning? Only because I have plenty of soap but no bleach, and going out to buy some seems counterproductive.

[dragonlady7]

Vinegar is good for removing odors, I think, but I don't believe it has any sanitation effect at all. I use it to clean my shower because it's good at dissolving soap scum.
If you just want stuff clean, then go for it!
Just don't ever combine it with bleach! Bleach is useful only on its own and never in combination with anything else at all! (You could clean with vinegar, rinse very well, let dry, and *then* bleach, and that would sanitize. But vineger+bleach = chlorine gas.)

If you've got your sanitation needs covered, vinegar's fine.

[oracne]

Thank you for this!

[dragonlady7]

I feel like the takeaway should be that bleach is a SEPARATE thing you don't just mix into stuff, but then I felt I had to clarify that by reblogging a bunch of stuff about that too, LOL.