Bleach use around the home!

[dottiedodah]

Bit boring I know.But just that really ,how often do you bleach loo?.I do every night, and sometimes during day as well. Also use it for cleaning sinks and soaking items .My DS thinks my use is a bit excessive .and could be harming the enviroment .Any thoughts?

Do you drive a car? What about all the fumes you are emitting on the planet with that?

Do you use aerosol's/perfumes etc? What about your child breathing in that?

Bleach down the loo for five minutes is small in the big scale of things.

Laurajj but it's with that attitude that we are in the current catastrophic place we are with regards to our environment, absolutely every little thing you do or don't do contributes to that situation. We all need to STOP doing as many harmful things as possibly, there are over 7 billion of us of course it matters and will help if we all do our bit.

No wipes either if you have been mindlessly using them ☹️.

Wipes plea not aimed at you in particular Laurajj

Bleach the loos once a week.

You are using it too much I'm afraid - could you use a toilet block instead?

Loos get bleached at most every other week - like pp we are in hard water area so use limescale removing products instead most of the time.

Occasionally flush plugholes with bleach and hot water if they start to get stinky. No bleach used anywhere else though!

I have found that bleach nowadays doesnt remove mould round the tiles/sealant. I remember the days if you splashed bleach on your clothes they were ruined.

But I have found a great product to do just that. CIF mould remover in a spray bottle. And i will ruin your clothes. I left a towel in the bath. 🙈

What I'm saying is that we all have an environmental footprint. People going off on one because I put bleach down the toilet, have just as big a environmental footprint as I do but in other ways, as I pointed out with in my previous posts. I'm not some anti-eco thoughtless evil person anymore than the next person.

And no, I don't use wipes.

@Laurajjj

Honestly can't see where anyone has 'gone off on you at one'.

I was merely stating facts regarding what bleach is and what it does to the environment.

As an aside, yep I drive but I wouldn't argue that driving was ok. It's not good to try and pretend that this kind of stuff is ok in our homes. Saying things like 'it's just salt' is like me saying a car is 'just like a horse and cart'. It's untrue and it it perpetuates a myth that it's ok. It's not.

Like I said if you want to is me the stuff, that's fine. Just recognise that it's not good for anyone.

As an aside, I don't use perfumes or aerosols.

Ok, maybe I worded that badly. What I meant was not towards me as such, but people generally preaching to others on this thread about their environmental footprints. I honestly don't think a bit of bleach down the toilet every other day is that bad, or is it going to tip the environmental scale.

Besides, chlorine is used in the sewage plant treatment as part of the chlorination process. Me not putting bleach down the toilet isn't going to stop chlorine meeting at one point or other whatever goes down the toilet.

I sometimes think people think into things too much. You go down the supermarket aisle and you'll see people picking up bleach from the shelf. Each and everyone of those people will put that bleach down their toilet because its intuitive that toilets are filthy things that need cleaning.

Here is a great article on the issue with being 'too' clean i.e. trying to maintain a sterile environment. TLDR: we are ourselves a complex ecosystem of bacteria, in our guts and on our skin, and our environment, while needing a certain level of hygiene (i.e. flushing sanitation) to keep us from being sick, also is a ecosystem. Things like windows open daily are more important than bleaching.

www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/health/immune-system-allergies.html

Also, I come from an area with lots of Traveller communities. I actually really respect the levels of cleanliness which Traveller women seem to uphold in their vans etc, but the health outcome for Travellers in general is not great compared to the general population.

There are lots of reasons for that, of course, but definitely bleaching EVERYTHING multiple times daily is certainly not creating a super-healthy culture, or we'd know about it.

I totally get the good and bad germs argument, and understand we need germs for our immune systems - as I say, I don't use cleaning wipes, I don't use those Dettol spray cans that people seem to casually use anywhere and everywhere, I don't use antibacs in the living room or bedrooms. For me my hotspots are the toilet and kitchen worktops (I don't use bleach in the kitchen). The toilet is a cocktail of the worst germs. I'd rather not have not have those germs in my house, so I exercise my right to blast those germs with bleach and I make no apology for that.

But you don't put your hands or mouth anywhere near the loo? As long as you thoroughly wash your hands with soap and hot water you will be fine. All those people in the aisles staring at bleach should perhaps think into it. No-ones vomitted for a decade in my house, I rarely use bleach.

I use Milton for everything

@Laurajjj

Seems to me you have two arguments

1. Loads of other people do it so that's ok and me stopping won't make a difference.

1. Other people do worse things.

Honestly I have no personal issue with you at all, I don't know you, you're probably a lovely person but it enrages me when people think like this. It's why nothing will ever change!

@Blitheringheights how can you know this? but the health outcome for Travellers in general is not great compared to the general population.

You got a record for every single death?
Most people I know die in accidents. My granny and her sisters lived Until they were in their 90s.

But you don't put your hands or mouth anywhere near the loo?

No but my kids will. Hence why it's bleach daily.

You do touch the toilet though, just by lifting and lowering the toilet seat though.

Ok, if you were to apply the risk assessment methodology ; eliminate, reduce, isolate, control (ERIC), then eliminate the risk is always the most preferable option if possible. Eliminate the risk in this case is to eliminate the germs. Reducing the risk is probably using soap to wash hands with. By blasting the germs with the bleach all i'm doing is eliminating the risk at the source.

@ Smash

1. what i'm saying is its just intuitive for people to want to have a clean toilet in their home. Its not for others to tell them otherwise really.

2. the environmental footprint argument is a valid argument because bleach down the toilet in the big scale of things is minimal compared to the environmental hazard that is driving cars, etc.

I love a good debate me

I'm not even sure if my cleaner uses bleach!

I keep a bottle for when people have the poops and clean with it then and I might squirt it round the loo when I have visitors. A bottle of cheap bleach loo cleaner will last me 6 months.

Milton is bleach as far as I know so I also use that for occasional sterilising. I use it on the humidifier for example.

Love 51 .DS is 24 !! and lives in his own flat .He has a BSC ,so likes to have a look at what kind of Cleaning agents I use!(From purely a professional viewpoint!!) Of Course!.Does sometimes clean the bathroom ! I think he obviously feels worried about the enviroment (as we all do anyway)due to his background.I think I was brought up to think Bleach killing was a sort of Panacea to kill all germs (guess the product!) and Mum would take pride in a lot of Scrubbing!.Like to use bleach not keen on the scrubbing TBH!

Bleach cleaning I meant!

I do not use bleach never have and never will.
It is unnecessary, damages the environment and ought to be banned.
Try hot water and scrubbing instead.

I knew it anyway because of my exposure to the travelling community, it's a fairly well-known thing surely? With as I said lots of reasons and factors. I'm certainly not alleging that too-high cleanliness leads directly to health problems, just that it's certainly not saving the community from health problems.

A two-second google brings you, for example, this from the FFT, a charity working on behalf of Travellers:

www.gypsy-traveller.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Health-and-Social-Care-Briefing-Master-Copy.pdf

Excerpt:
Health Inequalities
• Life expectancy 10 - 25 years lower;
• Low immunisation, high infant, child and maternal mortality, high
chronic disease, high anxiety & depression, just as bad if housed;

I would just like to make it really clear, because bigotry against Travellers is so rife, that I have big respect for them and their way of life. I just don't really think bleach in huge quantities and high frequencies is very helpful in a domestic situation.

What do all the bleach avoiders do if a stomach bug hits their house?