A FRESH LOOK AT HYGIENE
Everyone who lives and works in the countryside knows just how much time we spend cleaning things and just how important hygiene is to rural businesses . Whether you are involved in stables , kennels , food production , visitor attractions or any one of many countryside enterprises , keeping pathogens at bay can be make or break . This usually means the use of harsh , even dangerous chemicals such as sodium hypochlorite and formaldehyde . The environmental effect of such chemicals is huge but there are also hidden consequences - transport and plastic waste .
The environmental cost of transporting liquids is huge with the average 12 tonne rigid HGV emitting around 500g of carbon per kilometre . This could be delivering IBCs of hypochlorite , plastic tubs of powdered disinfectant or hundreds of boxes of trigger spray cleaning fluids , it makes no odds . Add to this the unbelievable amounts of plastic we use in the form of packaging and we have a recipe for on-going environmental damage that will blight our world for centuries to come .
Is there a solution to this problem ? Something that cleans and sanitises as well as proprietary brands , uses little to no disposable plastics and is very cost effective ? Well , yes there is . It ’ s called Stabilised Aqueous Ozone ( SAO ). It is generated on site in either a small hand-held device or a wall mounted unit . They produce ozone , stabilised in water at around 2ppm . Ozone is well tried and tested as a cleaning agent and has been in use for over 100 years . However , the recent development of stabilising it in water has brought an added versatility it .
What can it be used for ? If you can think of a cleaning application , then Stabilised Aqueous Ozone probably has a place , with one or two exceptions .
Anything you would regularly clean with a trigger spray cleaner can be cleaned with SAO , glass , tiles , stainless steel all come up with a great , smear-free shine . One of the great advantages of having the commercial unit is that we can simply fill a trigger spray and take it home , in fact , we haven ’ t bought a ‘ supermarket ’ cleaning spray for 2 years .
What about pathogens ? As SAO works by oxidising pathogens it is a very effective sanitiser and has been tested against many bacteria , viruses , oocysts and fungal spores . These include such nuisances as Salmonella , Parvovirus , Aspergillus and Cryptosporidium . It is also currently awaiting testing against the COVID-19 virus and has already been tested successfully against the COVID testing surrogate , Murine Hepatitis Virus . It carries the following British Standards : BS EN1276 ( bactericidal ), BS EN14476 ( viruscidal ) & BS EN13697 ( bactericidal , fungicidal , yeasticidal )
What about safety ? SAO breaks down in water and oxygen . There are no breakdown products beyond this , thus it can safely be used around children , animals and food … even on food . The Safety Data Sheet ( SDS ) of SAO is 0-0-0-A meaning it is classed as harmless and the use of PPE is only dictated by the environment being cleaned .
How do the units work ? The hand-held SAO dispenser , the iClean Mini , charges just like a phone , the charge lasting for many sprays and the reservoir is filled with tap water . Then it is sprayed like any spray surface cleaner and polishes to a shine very easily . The High Capacity Unit is wall mounted and plumbed into your water supply allowing the operator to draw off as much SAO as is needed for the task at hand .
16 | Rural Life