\nSeveral lines of questioning, repeated over the course of two months, via approximately 100 phone calls and countless emails, uncovered several facts. First, large makers of household chemicals are very, very hard to reach and are unwilling to reveal their ingredients for fear of piracy. Second, they’re hell-bent on convincing customers to disinfect their premises using the strongest chemicals possible to annihilate bacteria and viruses, evidenced not just by the kind of products they sell and the scare tactics by which they’re marketed, but also by the corporate refrain I heard over and over: Okay, maybe microfiber can remove germs, but it does not kill them.<\/p>\n
(To disinfect or sanitize, technically one must kill 99.999 percent of microorganisms in 30 seconds.)<\/p>\n
Never mind that removing germs is likely to be enough for the average homeowner, assuming he or she takes the time to wash the microfiber cloth properly afterward. Never mind that new university research finds that “safe” household chemicals are proving unhealthy now that so many of them are building up and mixing together inside our hyper-sealed homes, then draining outdoors. Never mind that more scientists are predicting the rise of superbugs as over-disinfecting threatens to create invincible strains of bacteria and viruses.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Yeah, save a little elbow grease and KILL GERMS ON CONTACT! That’s the American Way!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(via Les)<\/p>\n
<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Microfiber cloths clean things beautifully through mechanical action, without unleashing toxic fumes, polluting the water supply, or accelerating the evolution of resistant germs and bacteria. So why aren’t they as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-health-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49192,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/08\/possibly-the-most-important-science-news-today.html","url_meta":{"origin":12307,"position":0},"title":"Possibly the most important science news today","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Jan-15 12:07am","format":false,"excerpt":"Drug-resistant bacteria is a growing and potentially disastrous threat to humanity. Bacterial infections prior to antibiotics killed people with a regularity we cannot appreciate today.If scientists have come up with something that will fill in for existing antibiotics that are rapidly losing their effectiveness, especially something that doesn't lend itself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10421,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/01\/20\/um_no_thanks_ill_just_use.html","url_meta":{"origin":12307,"position":1},"title":"Um … no thanks … I’ll just use this nice clean pay phone over here …","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 20-Jan-07 12:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Cell phones are, um, a scosh filthy. Mobile phone retailer Dial-a-Phone conducted the study taking swabs from everyday objects and analyzing the bacteria found on them. The shocking results found...","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5658,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/29\/risk_assessment.html","url_meta":{"origin":12307,"position":2},"title":"Risk assessment","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 29-Jan-04 11:33am","format":false,"excerpt":"Forget about Mad Cow Disease. You're in much greater danger from your kitchen. Professor Anderson filmed more than 100 people preparing dinner and found that only two did not cross-contaminate...","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10980,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/03\/beer_good_for_you_good_fo.html","url_meta":{"origin":12307,"position":3},"title":"Beer! Good for you! Good for Mother Earth!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 3-May-07 12:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Fosters is teaming up with scientists to generate clean energy from the brewing process. The experimental technology was unveiled Wednesday by scientists at Australia's University of Queensland, which was...","rel":"","context":"In "Food & Drink"","block_context":{"text":"Food & Drink","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8442,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/15\/i_wish_id_had_a.html","url_meta":{"origin":12307,"position":4},"title":"I wish I’d had a blog fifteen years ago …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 15-Nov-05 8:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"... because I so predicted this ... US soldiers are set to add a new killing machine to their arsenal: one that wipes out bacteria. Chewing gum could help troops...","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3581,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/24\/dog_tired.html","url_meta":{"origin":12307,"position":5},"title":"Dog Tired","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Oct-02 7:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"I (and Margie, too) are really running on fumes this week. Kitten's been problematic about sleeping -- she's running on a 2:30a wake-up cycle right now, with a booster at...","rel":"","context":"In "Personal"","block_context":{"text":"Personal","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}