BACTERIA/ ENZYMES IN YOUR CLEANERS

Controlling Odors Using Enzyme Cleaners

 

By Kassandra Kania

Foul-smelling restrooms are a frequent source of complaints from building occupants — and a challenge for custodians charged with controlling odors and keeping restrooms clean and fragrant. Continual use makes controlling odors difficult, and masking malodors often intensifies the problem. To rid restrooms of offensive smells, custodial departments need to eliminate the cause of the odor — namely uric acid — and this is where traditional cleaners often fall short, say distributors, who instead stress the use of enzyme cleaners when controlling odors.

“Typically, in restrooms, the biggest issue is the smell of urine,” says Jim Flieler, vice president of sales at Swish Maintenance Ltd. in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. “Often, urine splashes to floors and gets into the grout, causing a uric acid odor that’s offensive. Once it embeds itself in grout, traditional cleaners cannot get rid of that smell, and it doesn’t help that most restrooms have poor air filtration.”

While the majority of custodial departments still favor all-purpose cleaners for restrooms, some are beginning to introduce enzyme-based cleaners into their cleaning regimens to remove or control odor causing bacteria, particularly in hard-to-reach porous surfaces.

 Anthony Crisafulli, owner of Atra Janitorial Supply in Pompton Plains, N.J., has had tremendous success selling enzyme cleaners, specifically in K-12 school districts.

 “In any facility, not just schools, the chief complaint is the odor coming out of the bathrooms,” he says. “If you can control odors, people aren’t going to complain as much if the bathroom’s a bit dirty. It’s the odors that kick up those complaints so quickly.”

 

An Introduction to Enzyme Cleaners
To understand how enzyme cleaners — also known as bio-enzymatic cleaners — can be advantageous in restroom cleaning, custodial managers need to first understand what they are and how they work.

 In essence, enzymes are chemicals made by bacteria to digest waste. Enzyme-based cleaners contain enzyme systems that break up waste molecules, which are then digested by the bacteria and converted into carbon dioxide and water. The waste that generates foul odors in the restroom serves as food for the microorganisms.

 According to Eric Cadell, vice president of operations for Dutch Hollow Supplies, Belleville, Ill., there are two types of enzymatic cleaners: those that contain surfactants and those that don’t.

 “In both cases, the enzymes are kept dormant until they come into contact with the food source,” Cadell explains. “That food source is going to be body fats, oils and uric acids. Typically the enzymes are mixed with water, which awakens them, and they immediately start looking for that food source. If they can’t find that food source, the enzymes will die.”

Because the enzymes remain active as long as the food source is present, they are most often used on restroom floors, around and below toilets and urinals, in drains and in grout lines.

 “Most floors in restrooms are grouted ceramic tile,” says Crisafulli. “Many custodians are trained to mop and clean their floors with general purpose cleaner, but that doesn’t get into the grout lines and clean the subsurface. We know that urine penetrates into those grout lines, and general surface type cleaners just don’t clean that deeply.”

 When choosing an enzyme-based cleaner, custodial managers should keep in mind that not all enzymes are created equal. Manufacturers have developed different strains to target specific types of organic waste.

 “There are so many different kinds of enzymes, so managers want to make sure that the one they purchase is designed for what the staff is trying to clean,” cautions Cadell. “Enzymes designed for a drain line in a kitchen, for example, go after oils and fat, so that same product won’t work in a restroom because it doesn’t eat uric salt.”

Although enzymatic cleaners designed for restrooms are most commonly used on floors, they can also serve as general-purpose cleaners for high touch points, such as mirrors, faucets and door handles.

“Part of our goal is to help departments reduce the amount of different chemicals used when cleaning restrooms,” says Crisafulli. “By using microfiber technology and enzymatic cleaning products, the custodial staff can clean an entire restroom with just one product — although we still recommend disinfecting touch points.”

 Performance, Green Benefits Of Enzymatic Cleaners

Reducing the amount of chemical used in restroom cleaning can streamline purchasing and product storage. But will managers struggle to convince custodians to give up traditional cleaning products in favor of enzymatic cleaners? Distributors agree that once workers understand how enzymatic cleaners work, educating them on their performance benefits — as well as the differences between traditional and enzymatic cleaners — may persuade them to accept these products into their repertoire.

For example, custodial departments concerned with green cleaning will be pleased to know that enzyme-based cleaners are safe for the environment, as well as human health, according to distributors.

“They’re not harmful because they’re not caustic, and most are at neutral pH levels,” notes Cadell.

 In fact, in most instances, enzyme-based cleaners eliminate the need to use harsh chemicals. Additionally, the waste consumed by the enzymes is converted into carbon dioxide and water.

 “That in itself is a green philosophy,” says Cadell. “It’s not killing anything, and it’s not a surfactant that gets into streams or wastewater, so it’s not causing any harm.”

 One of the major differences between traditional cleaners and enzymatic cleaners is that enzyme-based cleaners perform residual cleaning; that is, they continue cleaning well after the product has been applied. This improved product performance contributes to improved productivity.

 “It’s cleaning after you’ve cleaned,” explains Cadell. “When you use the enzyme cleaners, they start to travel down the p-traps and grout lines, and after you’ve cleaned and left, they’re still working on the odor source.”

According to Crisafulli, some enzyme-based cleaners continue to destroy odor-causing organisms for up to 80 hours, as long as the surface remains wet and there is a food source present.

“A lot of people say, ‘When I mop my bathroom floor it’s dry in 15 minutes, so how does the product continue to work if the surface has to remain wet?’” he says. “The answer is, on a porous floor, like a grouted floor, the tile may dry but that grout line stays wet for hours, and that’s where we want a deeper clean.”

Distributors also stress that on non-porous surfaces, enzyme-based cleaners can penetrate into areas where traditional cleaners can’t reach.

“Even on something as simple as traditional floor finish on a vinyl tile floor, there are micro-abrasions and scratches due to normal foot traffic,” says Crisafulli. “Mopping with a bio-enzymatic cleaner will allow you to get into those hard-to-clean places and give you that deeper cleaning ability.”

Proper Handling And Use of Enzyme Cleaners

In order for enzyme-based cleaners to work correctly, custodial staffs need to be trained on the proper procedures for handling and using these products.

 “Enzymes have a very short life cycle,” notes Cadell. “They are kept dormant in a suspension agent until they are diluted with water, at which point they need to find a food source quickly, or they will die.”

Once the enzymes are activated, they need to be applied directly to the surface that needs cleaning.

“These are not the type of products you can toss into your mop water,” warns Cadell. “They’ll start to attack things inside the mop, because the first place the enzyme touches and finds its food source is the first place it’s going to attach and eat.”

Cadell recommends spraying the enzymatic cleaner close to the area being targeted — within a foot or less for grout lines.

If custodians are using enzymatic-based cleaners on touch points, distributors encourage managers to train staff to target those areas first, and then move on to urinals, toilets, and finally, floors.

“We suggest workers clean the entire restroom with the bio-enzymatic cleaner, and then the last thing they do is mop the floors with it,” says Crisafulli. “Workers should start with dry processes — always working from high to low — and then work their way from the farthest point in the restroom to the door.”

Because disinfectants will attack enzymes, distributors advise custodians to disinfect before using enzymatic cleaners.
“Some managers train their people to go in and spray enzymes to take care of odors and then use disinfectant on top of that,” says Cadell. “In these cases, they’ve killed the product before it’s even had a chance to work.”

 The last area to be cleaned with the enzymatic cleaner is the floor. In addition to training custodians on daily procedures, Crisafulli advises them to do a restorative-type cleaning on floors every three months using an enzymatic cleaner.

“If we have a lot of odor complaints, we’ll do an evaluation and find that it’s usually because of the floors,” he says. “We’ll encourage departments to do a deep cleaning or scrubbing with the enzymatic cleaner and then do a heavy wet mop with the enzymatic cleaner for three or four days in a row. That way we know the surface is going to stay wet for 24 to 36 hours, and the enzymatic cleaner will continue to break down the odor-causing bacteria.”

While the industry has been slow to adopt enzymatic cleaners, Flieler predicts that sales will pick up over the next year due to safer blends, wider availability and more general knowledge.

“It’s common sense,” he says. “Bio-enzymatic cleaners are safer to use, safer for the environment and safer for human health. They continue to clean well after the initial application, and you displace those potentially disease-causing bacteria. Once we introduce people to these products and explain what they are and how they work, they never go back.”