With 45 years in safer cleaning formulation and manufacturing, Wexford Labs understands how important education is at all levels of facility management. This Wexford Labs E-Book is an introduction into how a property can go beyond clean, and offer a safer environment for children, seniors, higher-risk patrons, and their general guest population.

Many cleaning products today contain higher toxicity and possibly harmful ingredients, that are not needed to efficiently disinfect surfaces. Stemming from Wexford Labs’ deep history in the Healthcare & Education industry, they are focused on high-power disinfecting products with the lowest levels of toxicity to humans and the environment.

The Path to Smarter, Safer Disinfection is part of a continuous effort in education on not only better cleaning practices, but making more informed decisions on the disinfectants in your environment. The myths that safer cleaning products are more expensive, less powerful, or in some way “come up short” compared to major market presence brands, are just that.

It looks like Apple is getting smarter with their product care directions, and trying to make sure their products last a bit longer. In a recent Support Documentation update Apple warns against using hydrogen peroxide or bleach based disinfectants on their products.  You also should NOT submerge your Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, display or peripheral…but we hope that is more obvious. You can find hydrogen peroxide in many popular products including Lysol.

Hydrogen peroxide can create stress cracks and other issues in hard and soft surfaces.

Hydrogen peroxide is a better alternative to “Quat” based disinfectants, but still presents issues in both hard and soft surfaces prevalent in many environments. Hydrogen peroxide can create issues in hard surfaces such as acrylic, causing stress cracks after some rigorous 24 hour testing compared to citrus-acid based wipes. You can see effects to soft materials where there can be some degradation and swelling under testing as well.

What does this mean in Hospitality and Foodservice?

When it comes to FF&E and OS&E you should take into consideration what your teams Housekeeping teams are using. Cleaning and disinfecting products should not cut down the lifespan of the equipment in your environment, or be possibly be harmful to your staff and patrons. In Hotel Gyms wipes were used heavily even pre-pandemic and replacement costs on hard and soft surfaces in this environment can be very high. Materials like acrylic are used through many interior designs within the Lobby and Guest Rooms, from area dividers to room number signage.  You start thinking about performance fabrics used in general areas or foodservice seating and the long term costs could get interesting.

If you work with a 90 minute turnover rate time across a restaurant open say 8 hours, that is about 11 parties seated. We would like to imagine, at the moment especially, that these seats are being cleaned after each party. Now depending on how corrosive to the material the cleaner may be, its no wonder there seems to be a shortage of unworn seats at lots of diners.

Save your property on “ghost costs” and make the right supply chain decisions.

Using the wrong products can create hidden maintenance costs, and in a business environment where every dollar counts, it matters. Making sure decision makers in Housekeeping and Procurement are aware of the environment and and health costs associated with common disinfectants should always be a priority.