Sam, a 23-year-old freelance writer—newly married with a baby on the way—took a store associate job at a national-chain grocery store for the benefits: regular paycheck, health insurance, vacation pay, sick leave, and a pension plan.

He liked the steady income and work—bagging, stocking, and retrieving carts from the parking lot—and getting to know customers such as Hilda Martin, an energetic 60-something pensioner with blue eyes and silver hair, who always smiled, and when checking out at Lane Seven, complimented Sam on his bagging.

With some vigor, she placed a tub of margarine, a half-gallon of 2% milk, a bunch of bananas, a box of kitchen trash bags, a six-pack of fruit-at-the-bottom berry yogurt, a pound of cheese, three cans of frozen juice, a 12-ounce fillet of salmon, and a carton of ice cream, on the moving belt.

Sam thanked a patron leaving with groceries; saw Hilda, smiled and waved; then resumed his process: eyeing the moving peninsula of food and packages, hearing the beeps as items passed the scanner and shot at him like hockey pucks from the head cashier, and filling shopping bags and boxes like a 3D-puzzle expert.

“How are you, Hilda?” Sam asked smiling as he placed a can of Hilda’s frozen Minute Maid in a box without looking.

“Just fine, Sam. No headaches now that I’m away from that ‘smelly’ job.”

Hilda had taken early retirement from a national paint store on the advice of her doctor, as she had become sensitive to chemical smells.

She swiped her credit card, then watched Sam deftly pack the ice cream and cans of frozen juice near the milk, margarine, cheese and yogurt; put the salmon in a plastic bag on top; add the trash bags and bananas to her reusable tote, and nest everything neatly in her cart in less than seven seconds.

“You’re fast!”

“Thank you. Have a great day Hilda!” he said, rolling the cart out for her.

“You as well!” she said, steering toward the exit.

Sam liked Hilda’s vitality and warmth.

He did not know the next time he saw her she would have another headache.

Hygiene Theatre

When COVID struck, Sam continued his job as an “essential worker”, but when off work—like most Americans—Sam isolated himself and watched online video and news.

One night, CNN reported: “There’s a new threat disrupting grocery stores,” the anchor opened.  “It isn’t coronavirus, but fear”, and grocers—such as Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, Wegmans, Aldi, and others—were rolling out “enhanced cleaning and disinfection protocols” to allay concerns of shopping at physical stores.

“Sam, you’re one of my best workers,” his manager Jason said the next day at work. “Corporate held a call asking managers to assign a high-visibility worker to clean and disinfect all day. That’s now your full-time job.”

Sam cleaned touch points, in checkout lanes, and shopping carts, with his usual zeal; wearing a store-provided vest with “Disinfection Team” front and back.

While he was getting used to the squeaking sound of trigger-spraying disinfectant, a face mask muffling his voice, wearing gloves, and distancing himself from shoppers to prevent exposure to SARS-CoV-2; he was more concerned about another kind of exposure.

Cleaning or Polluting?

On arriving home after a day of disinfecting, Sam was greeted by his six-months-pregnant wife, Jenny, who—even at six feet away—wrinkled her nose and said, “You smell bleachy”.

“Sorry, that’s the disinfectant,” he said as he stripped off his work clothes, tossed them in the washing machine, showered, donned his sweats, put on a clean face mask, and sat down to stream the news on his tablet.

“COVID-19 is mainly spread through aerosol or airborne particles, so masking, physical distancing, and ventilation are key strategies,” said the epidemiologist on NBCNews.com.

If it’s mostly airborne, was all this disinfecting necessary? Was it healthy?

Sam Googled “COVID cleaning” and learned from the CDC that while preventing airborne spread is key, surfaces could transmit the virus when people touched dirty objects then “eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands”, and so it was important to wash hands and “clean all high-touch surfaces frequently.”

Since his asthma had flared up once he started the “disinfecting job”, Sam searched “disinfectant respiratory concerns” and learned from the website of Canada’s National Collaborating Center for Environmental Health: “A systematic review of 24 epidemiological studies found that occupational exposure to cleaning and disinfectant products is associated with an increase in the risk of asthma and rhinitis.”

Another source reported a need for assessing “health impacts of disinfecting chemicals to avoid [new consumer exposure risks]” and compared to March 2019, poison information centers reported a sharp increase in March 2020 calls re: accidental exposures to disinfectants.

Intervention Hint

Jenny, as an expectant mom, had just read an article about safer cleaning methods by Dr. Aly Cohen a rheumatologist and environmental health expert, and Frederick vom Saal, a professor of neuro- and reproductive biology whose research led to the 2012 removal of bisphenol A (BPA, an endocrine disruptor) from plastic baby bottles in the US.

The Environmental Health News (EHN) article said: “One of the most important ways to reduce exposure to some of the strongest, more toxic chemicals is to first decide how aggressively you need to clean vs. disinfect. For example, cleaning refers to the removal of dirt and germs from surfaces but does not necessarily kill germs. However, removing germs lowers their numbers and the risk of spreading infection (the amount of virus you are exposed to matters) … Removal of germs, the vast majority of which cause no harm to human health, can be done with products that are a lot less harmful to the human body than stronger chemicals used to remove infectious bacteria and viruses.”

Jenny had stopped using strong cleaners and bleach out of concern for her unborn baby.

Protective Steps

Sam had also taken steps to protect himself and mitigate his asthma: He held his breath while spraying, stepped back so the aerosol could settle, then wiped the surface dry with a microfiber cloth.

In the vestibule, he sprayed a shopping cart, paused while the air cleared, then saw Hilda enter through automatic doors from the parking lot. He said hello and waved.

Hilda smiled, took a few steps toward Sam, winced, braced against a cleaned shopping cart with her right hand and touched her temple with her left.

“Are you all right?” Sam asked.

“I got a whiff of whatever you’re spraying, and bam—headache!”

“Sorry! Is there anything I can do?”

“I’m ok, just give me a second,” she said, rubbing her temple. “I’m fine now.”

Sam pulled out a cart for Hilda, asked her to hold onto it with both hands as she shopped, put away his sprayer and cloth, then informed Jason of the incident.

“I’ll check with corporate and get back with you,” Jason said. “But for now, disinfect away from the customer, and if someone is sensitive, discontinue.”

Safer Better Tools

Jason heard from corporate the same day. The email said while they “wanted the strong optic of continual disinfection to reassure shoppers, they were open to science-based interventions” that might be better to use around shoppers.

Jason asked Sam to call Valley Janitorial Supply, Hamilton OH, a company Jason knew from his previous job at a middle school, to find a better way to clean and disinfect that was more benign but still effective—and he did, right away.

One of Valley’s suppliers, www.Kaivac.com, promoted a concept—“Remove It and Prove It”—targeting removal of soil and germs, validating outcomes with a hand-held surface-sampling device called an ATP Meter, and using EPA-registered disinfectants with COVID claims in a precise way to limit aerosolization.

The Valley rep had dropped off a few “props” in one of the store’s reusable green shopping totes for Sam to show his manager, and as Sam approached Jason, he was feeling more confident about solutions to the COVID-cleaning challenge.

“You know those wet wipes we provide free so customers can wipe shopping cart handles?”  Jason nodded. “That’s the right idea, but we need to up our game for our ‘disinfection team’”—Sam made air quotes then pointed to himself.

He pulled a yellow plastic cylinder from the tote; roughly the same shape and twice the size of the store’s off-the-shelf Clorox wipe dispensers.

“This holds large professional disposable wipes that we can saturate with a low-odor disinfectant of our choice, then apply disinfectant to surfaces by wet wiping to stop aerosolizing, inhaling, and wasting chemicals.”

Jason listened thoughtfully.

“On flat surfaces like stainless or customer-facing glass in the deli, we can do this,” Sam said as he strapped on a tool belt holding a bottle of disinfectant solution connected to a battery-powered sprayer head by a curly, extendable solution tube.

“You apply disinfectant closely and directly onto this microfiber trowel used to wet/wipe surfaces,” he explained. “You then use a squeegee to remove moisture, soil and germs from surfaces.”

“It’s like cleaning windows,” Jason volunteered.

“Yes, and tests show it’s 80 times better at removing soils than regular wiping.”

“Interesting,” Jason said. “What tests?”

“Glad you asked,” Sam said, pulling out a scientific looking device.

“ATP—stands for adenosine triphosphate—and it’s in all living and organic soils including skin germs and foods,” Sam said pulling out a medical-looking swab enclosed in a translucent plastic tube. “You take one of these swabs out of the tube, rub it across the surface in a 4-inch by 4-inch pattern, put it back and activate it by squeezing and bending the top of the tube, put it in the meter like this, and in 15 seconds, you get a reading telling you how clean something is.”

“Wow, impressive,” Jason said.

“Yes, and it makes great theatre!”

“I like it and will let corporate know.”

[More to come – Corporate approved a pilot, and local news picked up the story.]