Clean Laundry and Disinfect Laundry Technique 👲👲
Now that you are at home, I have a question for you. Have you been wearing the same pair of sweatpants for days now? Do we observe clean laundry or laundry hygiene? We may be a bit more relaxed about our wardrobe today.
But many of us have been asking about germs on clothes. So today in our coronavirus stay-at-home guide, what is the best way to wash your clothes during the Covid-19 outbreak?
We have all been vigilant about the germs on our hands. I think everyone has got that message, but what about the germs on our clothes and our shoes, how worried should we be, yeah it is something that you worry about when you come back to the house from being outside.
You know the risk is relatively low and by far the best thing you can do is wash your hands because experts say transmission is far more common in droplets than through objects, but we do know that the virus can live on surfaces like plastic and steel for two to three days, a lot of textiles materials including shoes. It contains plastic and metal so it is just good to be vigilant.
Coronavirus has changed the way we do some simple things including things like doing laundry. So if suppose there is someone in your house who does have coronavirus and you are caring for their laundry, what are the appropriate steps to take and are our laundromat safe these days?
Consumer reports has tips on how to handle this type of laundry: if you are living with someone who has a suspected or confirmed case of the corona virus, there are important safety precautions you need to take.
First, keep any contaminated clothes in a separate bin, we do not know exactly how long this coronavirus will survive on fabrics or clothes. But researchers think it is possible the virus could remain infectious on clothes for hours or even days. So for any clothes that may have been exposed to the virus, consider those contaminated clothes and keep those in a separate laundry bin.
Safe Way To Do Clean Laundry:
When it's time to wash clothes, use disposable gloves if you have them and throw them away immediately after you finish. If you don't have gloves you can absolutely do the laundry with your bare hands and just be sure to wash your hands thoroughly afterward.
As per the experts no special detergent or bleach is needed to wash the
garments, but use the warmest appropriate water and dry them completely.
Disinfect all the surfaces in your laundry room that may have been contaminated
like doorknobs and the door
pull of the washing facility. If you are using a shared laundry facility like an apartment building or laundromat, disinfect handles and services before you touch the machines. Most important are the chances of getting the virus from someone else directly is much higher than getting the virus from surface. So the most important thing is to stay at least 2 meters away from anyone else.
In addition to this, when you get home and finish the laundry, be sure to give your hands a thorough 20-second wash well with soap and water well, these tips are also important if you or someone you live with works in a hospital or another place where they could have come in contact with the virus.
As per the National Health Service report, there are three main ways that germs can be spread by clothes and Towels:
Towels and beds that are shared can spread contamination... dirty laundry can spread germs when handled… and even the laundering process itself can spread germs. Guidelines for protecting yourself against COVID-19 is focused on cleaning hard surfaces and highly-touched surfaces like your smartphone. Simple soap and water can be used, but the CDC has suggested that there is some risk involved when you are handling the clothes or bed sheets of a corona infected person.
Practicing Laundry Hygiene:
Practicing good personal hygiene habits and cleaning clothes after
each use is critical to stop transmission of viruses from garments to people.
To our understanding that unlike solid surfaces that can be wiped out,
garments have many layers of textile and therefore just cleaning the “surface”
of the garment is certainly not enough.
The garment needs to be immersed and soaked in water or solvent as a wet
wash or dry cleaning process respectively.
As a rule, if you have worn clothing outside the house or in crowded areas, it is best practice to wash it immediately. Similarly, the
clothing which has come into contact with the hard surface has to be cleaned
immediately as it has been proved that the virus survives on hard surfaces for
a longer time.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests “using the warmest appropriate water setting” – the NHS in the UK suggests between 40 and 60 degrees Celsius (104 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit) – along with a good quality detergent.
Bleach has been used in laundry for ages to disinfect specific items
of clothing.
The CDC also advises against shaking dirty laundry “as this will minimize the possibility of dispersing the virus through the air.”
As advised by DCD, keep these laundered items fully dry. Stay safe out there! On second thought… stay safe by staying indoors.
To avoid the spread of viruses, logic and common sense are important. It is quite obvious to wash hands if you have handled dirty clothes. It is not necessary to wash all the layers of clothes thoroughly, unless you wear it outside the house.
Is It Safe To Use Laundromat Service for Laundry Hygiene?
If you have your own Washer
Extractors and Tumble Dryer, you can just do your laundry at home. For those who
share a communal laundry room or visit the laundromat, then extra precautions
make sense:
- Consider social distancing. Is your building's laundry room so small that you cannot keep 6 feet distance between the two
people, then do not enter if someone else is already there. Building
management and the secretary should be asked to plan a laundry schedule to
keep everyone safe from infection.
- Sorting laundry before hand while going to the
Laundromats and folding them at home can save the amount of time you spend
there and the number of surfaces you touch, suggests a report in The
New York Times.
- Bring sanitizing wipes or hand sanitizer with
you to wipe down the machines' handles and buttons before you use them.
Or, since most laundry spaces have a sink, wash your hands with soap right
after loading the machines for at least 20 seconds.
- If you have your own cart and use it. Clothes
may become infected while using communal carts, hands may transfer the virus
by touching the cart.
- Do not touch your face while doing laundry.
(You should be getting good at this by now.)
- Do not hang out in the laundry room or laundromat while your clothes are in the machines. Less time you spend close to others, the better. Keep reading books in your car, go back home and keep yourself isolated from the crowd.
If someone is infected:
Guidelines for when someone in your household has a confirmed case or
symptoms of Covid-19. The CDC recommends:
- Wearing disposable gloves while washing dirty clothes is good practice. Wash your hands immediately after
your work is completed.
- Shaking dirty laundry can spread the virus
in the atmosphere, try to avoid doing it.
- Using the warmest possible water is advisable.
Follow the manufacturers' instructions for whatever you are cleaning.
Drying the clothes completely is always advisable.
- Try to avoid mixing your own
laundry in with the sick person's laundry. Using a separate laundry bag is
always advisable.
How often should the clothes be washed for Laundry Hygiene?
Pandemic living has made us all more cautious and conscious about wellness and our personal hygiene. We all are constantly washing and sanitizing our hands regularly and wearing masks.
Wearing tight fitting clothes can make you sweat more and absorb oil and will cause it to get stinky.
If nobody in the house shows coronavirus symptoms, then you can wash the clothes as per your usual practice.
But if it happens
that you have been out in public (to a shop) and people around you are not
adhering to the CDC’s social distancing
guidelines (in other words, staying a minimum of 6 feet away
from other people who don’t live in your household), it is probably good to
wash clothes immediately when you come home. it is probably a good practice to machine
wash the clothes worn outside when you get home.
If you do not have
washing machines at home, then there is another method of washing clothes by
hand, only one has to use hot water, as hot as possible. Steamers can also be
used to clean the clothes and kill germs.
Along with disinfect laundry quarantine is the
only remedy for the coronavirus infected patients along with regularly drinking
warm water and inhaling steam.
