It’s time to return to our first topic ever here at Kitchen Stewardship, antibacterial soap. We learned that triclosan, the common ingredient in antibacterial soaps, is bad news for the environment and our health, as well as overkill for our hands. Good hand-washing with regular soap is all we need.
An incredibly popular option for hand cleaning, considering its rather recent appearance on the market, is waterless hand sanitizer. I wanted to give you some time to understand and root out the antibacterial soaps in your house before approaching sanitizers, because they work differently and therefore deserve different treatment.
This is definitely the week to tackle this topic, because (1) hopefully you can handle sanitizers and eggs in one week, (2) it’s the week of Earth Day, so Cleanwell is having a sale on their stuff, and (3) today I read a section in Green Goes With Everything by Sloan Barnett on sanitizers. God is pushing me to share all this with you.
Sanitizers vs. Soap
Ethyl alcohol is the active ingredient in most hand sanitizers. (Some of them sneak triclosan in there; find them and do not purchase!) Ethyl alcohol is the same alcohol that is in wine, beer and liquor. It works the same as rubbing alcohol to kill germs. It kills them dead, like a hydrogen bomb (sort of). Triclosan works more like a disease, so some bacteria can mutate to learn to resist the way in which triclosan works. Alcohol just destroys life. It also is very drying on skin, which is why most sanitizing gels add moisturizer, and water. That’s about all you’re getting in the bottle, along with a few other random chemicals.
Overkill?
So the question remains: should families use alcohol-based hand sanitizers? I’m floating around “maybe” and “sometimes” for my answer. Here’s a recommendation from the CDC, comparing sanitizers to antimicrobial soaps, which they do no recommend for general use: “Their advantages include rapid and broad-spectrum activity, excellent microbicidal characteristics, and lack of potential for emergence of resistance. Alcohol-based products could be recommended for use among persons who need immediate protection after touching contaminated surfaces or before and after contact with someone at high risk for infection.” That means if you are sick or working with someone who might be sick or become sick (like an infant), sanitizers kill everything quickly, kill well, and probably don’t cause “superbugs”. Because they kill so well, they really are overkill for the average family situation.
My Compromise
Personally, I fall back on sanitizer when we’re out of the house, although my homemade baby wipes would be just as good, maybe better (see how soap works for the science behind why). When potty training, it was an awful extra step to wash the child’s hands every time, especially since my son couldn’t quite reach the faucet, even with his stool. We allowed the use of sanitizer, and like most human beings, my son loves the shortcut. He’d use sanitizer every time if I let him. I make a policy that after being outside and before each meal he needs to use soap and water. Sanitizer only kills germs; it doesn’t get any dirt OFF the hands…and I don’t love the profile of alcohol and other chemicals, either. That’s my compromise.
We also have Cleanwell’s spray sanitizer in our bathroom. Its active ingredient is tea tree oil, a natural antibacterial agent. It smells great. The only drawback for kiddos is that the push-squirt bottle is too tough for little fingers to handle. My son still needs Mom’s help to manage it. Cleanwell is having a sale this week at their website. Use the code EDO9 to get 30% off their products. Target also sells Cleanwell; sanitizer is $4.49-5.00. That’s why we still have the cheap-o stuff in our house as well!
The Benefits of Sanitizer
- Ease of use
- Effectiveness on germs
- Rate of sickness is often reduced in those who use it (probably because of the first two reasons)
A Big Drawback
There have been news articles over the past few years about children in schools getting drunk – yes, that’s not a typo - from licking sanitizer off their hands. See Snopes for the scoop. Sanitizers need to have at least 62% ethyl alcohol content to be effective, so they’re quite potent if ingested. This is obviously one more strike against alcohol-based sanitizers. I don’t buy the ones that smell fruity (they cost as much as the Cleanwell anyway), and I make sure that young children are supervised and/or well-trained to NOT put it in their mouths. Our bottle has a “Mr. Yuk” sticker from Poison Control on it. Click here for info on how to get some for your house. See FDA instructions on how to train children here. You can call 1-800-222-1222 to get stickers straight from Poison Control, too. By the time we tackle household cleaners at the end of the summer here at Kitchen Stewardship, you won’t need many. But every house has something children shouldn’t put into their mouths.
Clearly it’s up to you whether you allow sanitizers in your home. I’m happy to share the science behind them with you. Talk to your children’s school/teacher about “greener” options if you think the risk is too great, especially in very young children’s classrooms. Earth Day (Wednesday) is a perfect time to do it!
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CatholicMom.com » Columnists Katie Kimball » Back to School Soap Information by Katie Kimball // Aug 25, 2009 at 1:02 pm
[...] would encourage you to read my post about the pros and cons of hand sanitizer before you go shopping. You may want to try Cleanwell’s tea tree oil-based sanitizer instead. [...]