When you apply a disinfectant or other cleaning product, it is important to know that it is being used in the way it was designed to be, to ensure it is doing what you need it to do - that is, fully disinfect / clean the surface.
Keeping surfaces and equipment clean and disinfected is essential to ensure cleanliness and to minimise the risk of staff and visitor sickness when visiting your premises.
In the most simple terms, the contact time of a cleaning chemical is how long a disinfectant needs to stay wet on a surface in order to be effective.
Cleaning chemical contact times can range widely, from as little as 15 seconds, to as long as 30 minutes for chlorine oxides used in laboratories. With such long contact times for some chemicals, there is the risk of reduced compliance because it’s harder to use them correctly. Imagine having to use the product, and then observe that the disinfectant is still wet on the surface for up to 30 minutes!
In this time of COVID, the importance of using chemicals designed to tackle such viruses and bacteria correctly has never been more important. If using a sanitiser with manufacturers guidance of a 60 second contact time, this means the chemical should remain wet on the surface for 60 seconds to work as explained by the manufacturer. The product will have been through extensive laboratory testing, and this will be the minimum amount of contact time needed for the chemical to work efficiently.
How many times have you been in a restaurant, and seen a member of staff spray a product onto a dining table, and wipe it off with a cloth, within a second of it landing on the surface? The cleaning chemical contact time is not being followed, so therefore the cleaning product is not being used correctly as it should be, to kill the maximum number of viruses and bacteria on the surface.
There are various reports and articles that have been published regarding cleaning chemical contact times.
At Green Fox Cleaning, our careful selection of cleaning products means that we use the most effective products, with short contact times, allowing our highly trained staff to work as effectively and efficiently as possible.
If you would like to find out more about how we can help keep your premises safe, click here to visit our home page, where you can contact your local office to find out more.
