Secrets to Better Sanitation
You're probably never going to get your plumbing work gear back to fresh-out-of-the-box conditions, but it's important to your health to keep your tools and work clothes at least somewhat sanitary. Working around -- sometimes with -- human refuse can expose you to all sorts of health hazards. While your immune system can handle a lot, there's no reason to risk it, especially since some transmissible diseases can live for a long time outside of the human body.
Cleaning, Sanitizing and Disinfecting: What's the Difference?
Cleaning is the first step to keeping yourself safe: it's likely the first thing you do to your tools and work gear. Whether you scrape off all the gunk in the safety of your shop and hose it down with a soap and water solution or run your truly grimy stuff through a commercial outdoor car wash, it's all the same process: cleaning.
Cleaning does very little beyond removing visible dirt, grime and waste. But to move to the next step – sanitizing – the grime must go. Otherwise, the sanitizing agents can't get to the bacteria, viral material and fungi to do their job. Sanitizing is the process of reducing the number of germs and microorganisms to allowable public safety standards.
While you should aim for at least sanitation, the next step – disinfection – further reduces the risk of transmissible disease. Where sanitizing only reduces the number of germs, disinfection aims to destroy or inactivate as many germs as possible. It's one step below sterilization – a complete kill of all organisms.
What Should I Clean? What Should I Use?
It might be over simplifying a bit to say that if it's dirty, clean it, but that's the gist of cleaning your gear. Anything that has encountered the interior of a pipe, a dirty floor or a particularly nasty job site should get at least a cursory wipe down with a cleaning agent. Commercial soaps and cleaners like Fast Orange, Goop or even a diluted solution of an all-purpose cleaner work well. For coveralls and cloth gloves, a run through the hot wash cycle at your nearest laundromat is good enough. Work boots can be hosed off or wiped down with a soapy shop cloth.
Should I Sanitize or Disinfect? What Do I Use?
When cleaning your plumbing gear, aim for disinfection and you'll probably end up with sanitization. It's always better to aim for a higher standard of microorganism reduction and fall slightly short. Tools that have come into contact with human waste can easily be sanitized with ammonia or ammonia-based products. Take care when using agents containing bleach, as any tools that still have urine or fecal matter on them may react negatively and create deadly chlorine gas. Otherwise, commercial disinfection agents like Odoban, D-128 or Ever-Pine are all safe and easy to use for sanitizing tools and gear. Most can also be added to laundry cycles to kill off microorganisms on your work clothes.
As a plumber, you're exposed to some serious health hazards by way of human waste. Almost daily, you’re exposed to dangers from E. Coli, Hepatitis, C. Diff, staph, giardia and HIV to gastroenteritis or infected cuts. Cleaning and sanitizing your gear reduces the risk to your health and reduces the risk of unknowingly transporting pathogens from jobsite to jobsite or your own home. Remember, even though you may have a high resistance to such infections, someone in your family may be more vulnerable - don’t take any chances with your own health or theirs.
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