Welcome to the NERD Corner: Beyond Appearance -The Science of Cleaning for Health

This is where I get to let loose with the Nerdy science behind the cleaning and sanitation issues that affect our indoor environment's air quality, as well as, the cleaning issues that affect our health.  Here we'll discuss the scientific stuff we need to know before we can effectively address those issues.  There are only 2 reasons to clean:  Health or Appearance and at times, both. 

Here's a quick explanation to help you understand how cleaning for health differs from cleaning for appearance. 

When cleaning for appearance, the only issue that needs to be addressed is whether the cleaning event satisfies the client's desired cosmetic results. The client isn't necessarily interested how it gets done,  just make it look better. 

Therefore, appearance cleaning neither requires the removal of any soil, nor does it require an improvement in the health of the indoor environment. The cleaning technician is free to mask the soil with chemicals, hopefully, the client is happy, they'll pay the bill, so the cleaner is happy.  Appearance cleaning does not require the implementation of safe practices nor is it required to reduce unhealthy conditions. Furthermore, appearance cleaning actually encourages unhealthy practices  because the cleaning technician has been tasked to make the carpeting "look good", not to remove soil or germs.  The technician applies chemicals known as optical brighteners to the carpeting to improve the appearance and brightness of the carpeting without removing soil.  Optical brighteners work by absorbing ultra violet light and emitting blue light. Blue light actually hides dullness and soil from the receptors in our eyes, hence the term "optical" brighteners.  Optical brightening agents change what we see, but  they do not change the condition of the carpeting.  Additionally, there are many studies indicating that optical brightening agents are absorbed by the skin and  may produce long term health issues. We'll discuss this at length in the near future.  When the client judges the results based solely upon cosmetic results, then the only concern is to make the carpeting look good enough to get paid. 

At the other end of the spectrum we find cleaning for health.  Cleaning for health, is 100% scientific, it is not subjective. Health cleaning requires provable and measurable reductions in the volumes of unhealthy contaminates. The technicians objective is to remove all contaminates and everything else that does not belong in the carpeting, in addition to filtering and cleaning the indoor air.  To provide verification that the cleaning event has improved the health of the indoor environment, it is necessary to have a system to measure the volume and types of biological and non-biological matter that the carpeting has trapped both pre and post cleaning, which we then use to create a differential analysis. Carpeting is manufactured from many different materials:  nylon, polyester, polypropylene, rayon, wool, acrylic, acetate, cotton, and then there are some compositions that use blends of several of these materials.  Its very important to note that each of these materials offers differing levels of biological and contaminate load carrying capacities, which is just another way to say that some of the materials can carry and hold soil better than others.  Stay with me here, if you've gone this far already, you'll like the rest.  Some materials resist staining better than others, but do not trap and hold biological loads very well, while some stain easily, but have an ability to hold larger biological loads within the carpeting.  The collection of the samples must follow rigid and consistent protocols. We have a molecular cellular biologist perform the sampling to ensure the veracity of our sampling process.

The entire approach to the cleaning event is completely different than the appearance cleaning approach.  When cleaning to improve health, every effort must be made to reduce contaminating and disturbing the environment.  So, let's get started. 

Enjoy this part of our website.  If you ever have a question, just send me an email. 

envirocleanofillinois@gmail.com

Make it a healthier day.  So, when you make that phone call to compare prices for carpet cleaning you should ask if the carpet cleaner uses optical brighteners and if the carpeting will be dry in less than 2 hours.