How to Clean for Health

The Cost of Illness

Recent studies show that sick employees cost American businesses over $150 billion annually and can cost your company up to $500 per illness.

• Sick pay
• Insurance costs
• Replacement worker wages
• Lost productivity
• Influenza-related absenteeism averages 5-7 days

Its how you clean that keeps your employees and clients as safe as possible from infectious disease. Inanimate objects can transmit disease - these are called "fomites."

The emphasis on cleaning common surfaces (fomites) properly cannot be over-emphasized.

Importance of Hands/Fomites In Disease Transmission

• 40 to 90 % of the adults with a cold have the virus on their hands
• 20% of the objects handled by a person with a cold have virus on them
• Cold and flu can survive up to 72 hours on surfaces
• Viruses which cause diarrhea can survive for 2-4 weeks on surfaces

Hand-to-Face Contact Plays a Key Role in Disease Transmission

Every 60 seconds, a working adult in an office touches as many as 30 objects. An adult brings his fingers to his face 18.5 times per hour (8 to nose, 8 to mouth and 2.5 to eyes)

What does this mean for you?

An outbreak in your facility could devastate your company and brand.  The health of your staff, customers and their families are at stake.  Each illness can cost your business up to $500 in lost productivity.

As a comparative, schools are probably the only area where people are in as close contact with each other as they are in our office spaces.

In an Ohio school, scientists conducted an epidemiological study that looked rates of gastroenteritis and respiratory disease in elementary schools. They  compared classrooms which used disinfecting wipes at end of day on each desk and used alcohol gel sanitizer for hands. The result was that less incidence of gastroenteritis in intervention classrooms and fewer fomites contaminated with norovirus and lower concentration of norovirus on fomites.

Improper Cleaning Can Make Things Worse

Reducing risk of Infection can be accomplished with simple additions to your office and common areas, as well as any needed policy changes and staff briefings:

• Hand washing - 30 to 50 % reduction in illness
• Alcohol gel sanitizers - 30 to 50% reduction in absenteeism
• Hygienic Cleaning of surfaces - 50% reduction in absenteeism in schools

Based on study results, the EPA established the following indoor environmental management guidelines:

• Clean for health first, appearance second
• Maximize extraction of pollutants
• Minimize chemical, particle, and moisture residues
• Properly dispose of cleaning wastes
• Provide for safety, including minimizing human exposure to pollutants

This interesting point here is that the EPA cleaning guidelines even say to clean for health first and then for appearance. Usually it is the other way around.

Why is it important to disinfect or sanitize?

While a sanitizing product that that kills 99.9% pathogenic bacteria would be expected to also reduce human exposure by 1000 fold,
A disinfecting product that that kills 99.999% pathogenic bacteria would be expected to also reduce human exposure by 100,000 fold.

What Needs to Be Disinfected

All surfaces in contact with hands (Critical Control Points):

• Bathroom fixtures
• Phones, desktop surfaces
• Counters, tables
• Door handlesLight switches
• All surfaces in contact with human fluids
• Cleaning implements

Get the Green Surface Shield 

And give the best possible safety to everyone in your company.  Again, we need to be conscious of cleaning for our health first, and appearance second. However, it's possible to do both.

We want to partner with your existing cleaning service or staff. While they take care of making sure everything is as clean and disinfected as possible, we will treat all the common surfaces with our patent-pending treatment, then check and update this as necessary every single month.