When is disinfecting appropriate? The CDC now says to disinfect when someone confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 has been in the building within the past 24 hours.
This is the same guidance Green Seal provided last Summer in our Safer Guidelines for COVID-19 Disinfecting for Schools and Workplaces, a free public resource that is now being implemented in more than 1 billion square feet of building space, including by Green Seal-certified cleaning services.
Why Disinfecting Can Harm Instead of Help
It has been clear for some time that dousing a space in hazardous disinfecting chemicals won’t do much to prevent the spread of COVID-19. There are two main reasons for this: COVID-19 is much more likely to spread through person-to-person and airborne transmission than it is through surface-to-person transmission, and coronaviruses are relatively easy to kill on surfaces with plain old soap and water (or regular cleaning solutions).
There is a natural instinct to turn to the harshest chemicals available to attack a nasty virus, but the CDC’s new guidance should reassure us all that we can follow the science to avoid a dangerous reliance on disinfection. Doing so will avoid health risks ranging from cancer to serious respiratory disease – an especially grave risk for vulnerable populations such as children and the 1 in 13 Americans with asthma.
Not All Disinfectants are Created Equal
For the times when disinfecting is appropriate, some disinfecting products are safer than others. Green Seal has curated U.S. EPA’s List N: Disinfectants for Coronavirus to help you identify safer ones.
Unlike other active ingredients commonly found in disinfectants, the active ingredients we recommend are not linked to asthma, cancer, endocrine disruption, DNA damage or skin irritation. Find our list of recommended ingredients and products here.
With the COVID-19 pandemic spurring many first-time producers to enter the market, the FDA has warned consumers to avoid hundreds of hand sanitizers because of high levels of hazardous ingredients including methanol (wood alcohol) and the contaminant 1-propanol. Meanwhile, even when properly formulated, hand sanitizers can include hazardous ingredients linked to cancer, allergies, and skin and eye irritation – even if they have an ecolabel.
With our new certification program, Green Seal is providing consumers, purchasers and facility managers a simple way to identify hand sanitizers that meet the highest standard for health, safety and performance.
The Highest Standard of Clean
Formulating with healthier ingredients is vital for a product that people apply to their skin dozens of times a day. Our new certification standard, created with input from public health and industry experts, screens 100% of alcohol-based hand sanitizer product formulas for:
- carcinogens
- reproductive toxins
- skin irritants
- phthalates
- parabens, and
- contaminants
And as always, consumers can be confident that Green Seal-certified products meet uncompromising performance standards, do not pollute waterways, and use environmentally preferable packaging materials.
Verification By a Trusted Authority
Our new hand sanitizer certification program is part of our commitment to leverage our expertise in healthy and sustainable cleaning and facility care to help protect people from both COVID-19 and negative health impacts from toxic chemicals.
- Green Seal’s Guidelines for Safer Cleaning and Disinfection for schools and workplaces have been adopted by commercial cleaning companies servicing more than 1 billion square feet of space.
- We’ve partnered with SEIU 32BJ, the largest union of property service workers in the U.S., on COVID-19 training for its members.
- More than 30,000 Green Seal certified products are used in offices, schools and homes each day, including cleaning products and hand soaps critical to de-contaminating buildings and protecting people.
Learn more about Green Seal certification for hand sanitizers here.
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