By David Andrew
Smith
Bleach products must be the most commonly
found cleaning products in households, and offices complexes are not
far behind. Go into most household toilets and you will probably
find a bleach product. Go into office toilets which are only cleaned
by contract cleaners once, twice or three times a week and you will
probably find a container of bleach of some description nestling
either on the window sill or by the toilet bowl, especially in the
‘ladies’ toilets. Males do not seem to have the same reliance on
bleach, or they simply do not think about clean toilets!
What is this fascination that we seem to have with bleach
not as a whitener but as a cleaner? Is it effective as a
disinfectant? Yes, because the alkaline nature of the bleach plus
the small amounts of chloride ions produced are both effective at
killing bacteria and viruses. Is it effective as a whitener? Yes,
because on contact with water it produces free oxygen radicals that
will oxidise some coloured pigments. Hence the bleaching effect.
Oxygen radicals are also effective disinfectants so aid in
destroying harmful organisms.
However what are the cleaning
properties of bleach? They would appear to be minimal. Does bleach
remove dirt? Does bleach remove staining in toilet bowls? The answer
to all these would seem to be no it does not. What the bleach is in
fact doing is rendering the stain or the dirt transparent. It is
bleaching it. It is still there but not visible!
So
householders quite happily soak there toilet bowls with bleach. This
gets them clean with the minimum of effort and has the added bonus
that they smell ‘clean’. The porcelain will certainly look clean and
shiny but in reality it is not you just cannot see it any more as it
has been bleached!
I believe we rely so much on bleach
because of past usage by our parents and grand parents and it gives
the effect of looking clean and most importantly it smells clean.
Psychologically we see it clean, we smell it clean and all the nasty
‘germs’ have been killed so it must be clean. In reality it is a
trick, the dirt or the stain is still there we just cannot see it,
and whatever odours were around are being masked by the smell of
chlorine, the clean smell. Like mould that has been treated with
bleach they will return!
David Andrew Smith has
been working for many years in the cleaning industry and is the
owner of http://www.wesparkle.co.uk
