Cleaning Trivia with Stratus Building Solutions

What do YOU think?

Answer: They're ALL correct!

The amount of time a disinfectant should sit on a surface before being wiped up is dependent upon how strong the solution is.

Green Cleaning is Always in Style

Some types of cleaning come and go, but sustainable cleaning is the wave of the future. Every product and process used to clean your home or facility has the potential to be greenified. Follow us our green cleaning tips that everyone can use at @StratusCleaning on Twitter.

Five Second Rule: Friend or Foe?

Whether you live your life by it or don't believe it at all, there is now an answer regarding what has become widely accepted as the "5 Second Rule," a notion that supports that food is still clean as long as it has not exceeded five seconds on the ground.

Not true. And now we (or a Loyola expert, rather) can.

This is a "No!"

Infection Today released a report stating:

“A dropped item is immediately contaminated and can’t really be sanitized,” says Jorge Parada, MD, MPH, FACP, FIDSA, medical director of the infection prevention and control program at Loyola University Health System. “When it comes to folklore, the ‘five-second rule’ should be replaced with ‘when in doubt, throw it out’.”

All items that come into contact with a surface pick up bacteria (and dirt!). How much bacteria and what kind of microbes depends on the object dropped and the surface it is dropped upon, he says.

“In the same time period, a rock candy is less likely to pick up contamination than a slice of cheese. As an extreme example, whether it’s a rock candy or a slice of cheese, I dion’t think anyone would invoke the five-second rule if it fell in the toilet,” said the professor at Loyola’s Stritch School of Medicine. “At the end of the day, this is a polite social fiction we employee to allow us to eat lightly contaminated foods,” Parada says.

Click to read the whole article and find out how they address the claim you can improve your immune system through exposure.

Best Time to Clean

A little bit of humor shared by Stratus Building Solutions.

What is Sick Building Syndrome?

Yes, this is real, folks. The National Safety Council reports on the the definition of Sick Building Syndrome on their website.

To learn more about Sick Building Syndrome from the National Safety Council, please visit this link.
To learn how Stratus Building Solutions can help prevent Sick Building Syndrome, visit this link.

How Do You Measure Clean? With an ATP Meter

Image from CMM Online

It's obvious when there's a pile of trash one day and it's gone the next. It's obvious when a dirty, scuffed floor is buffed and polished. But a lot of the cleaning we do is unseen. "Cleaning for Health" takes cleaning up the biological contamination in addition to the more visible debris.

Facility Manager and Facility Service Providers in past had to trust they had a clean building, but Facility Managers and Providers today can physically measure the level of cleanliness with scientific evaluation.

Introducing the ATP Measurement System.

Tip: Make sure to store your wands in the refrigerator.
They must be kept at 36-46 degrees Fahrenheit.

Regardless of the facility type or surface tested, the ATP meter detects the level of microbial contamination in just seconds. The meter measures Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), the universal energy molecule found in all animal, plant, bacterial, yeast and mold cells. When a facility is cleaned with Stratus Green Clean products, the ATP is significantly reduced.

With a simple swab and a snap to release the sample into a unique liquid stable luciferase/luciferin reagent, the stick is inserted into the ATP meter device. It is here where light is used to determine the amount of ATP present. A high reading demonstrates high contamination.

ATP samples can be a great way to document the level of cleanliness your Facility Service Provider is offering your facility. Go ahead and ask for a demonstration today!

Stratus Building Solutions Suggests Recycling Craft Projects

Here at Stratus Building Solutions, we have a huge focus on living a "green" lifestyle. With that comes recycling, but not just the "paper goes here, glass goes here" kind of recycling. We'll show you how to have some fun with recycling, too.

Check out our Recycling Projects & Crafting board on Pinterest for ideas on how to reuse common materials. We're always adding new ideas, too.

Let us know when you make something - and share any recycling crafts you might know of!

Happy Crafting,
Stratus