In This Part
► Hand Hygiene v. Safe surfaces
► Following your mother’s advice
► Cleaning up dirt
► Attacking biofilm

Although cleanliness may be next to godliness, it is also very closely related to disinfection. In fact, cleaning can avert the need to disinfect in some situations because clean and dry surfaces cannot harbor microbial growth for very long.

Disinfectants kill microbes. However, depending on the pathogen, preventing the microbes from getting a foothold by removing food and moisture (two essentials for sustaining living organisms) may, in the long-term, be as effective as a chemical disinfectant. In fact, most chemical disinfectants cannot do their job when high levels of organic soil are in the way. Soil can absorb the disinfectant’s active ingredients, provide more places for the germs to hide, and possibly change the chemical nature of the disinfectant.

This chapter gives you a variety of options for physically removing germs.