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Honestly I never expected laundry detergent to actually sanitize anything. I use it to help remove stains and grime from my clothes during a wash. Do people ex

by wil421 9y ago

Honestly I never expected laundry detergent to actually sanitize anything. I use it to help remove stains and grime from my clothes during a wash. Do people expect the laundry to actually sanitize clothes? I would think having to option to use cold water is a dead giveaway. Anyone have a link for a dishwasher test similar to this one?

komali2 9y ago
Age-old wisdom passed from my grandma to my mom to me is that if poop gets on something, just throw it in the wash, even with other laundry (unless it's like A LOT OF POOP), on a hot cycle. Always seemed to work just fine, now I'm horrified.
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  Yuck, I would never throw something poopy in the wash— hand scrub it at the laundry sink beforehand for sure.
- munificent 9y ago
  As someone currently fostering a batch of kittens with stomach bugs... I'm going to go home and burn all of my clothes now.
  - dmckeon 9y ago
    You might want to google feline toxoplasmosis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Parasitology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Parasitology
    - munificent 9y ago
      Yeah, I'm familiar with it, though hopefully not familiar familiar with it. As far as we know, it's some other kind of coccidia. Either way, there's a whole lot of washing and hand cleaning going on these days.
    - cm2012 8y ago
      You're more likely to get it from undercooked meat.
- cimmanom 9y ago
  If the water is hot enough it should be fine. Just like boiling water kills bacteria. (And it doesn't have to actually reach boiling temp to kill the vast majority of pathogens.)
21 9y ago
The chemicals in detergent are pretty powerfull (see Tide Pods Challenge). Also, newer detergents contain enzymes which are particularly good at removing biological stains (but do they kill?) In fact, new washing machines also optimize their temperature profile so that they keep the water longer at ~30-40 degrees C, since this is the optimum temperature for enzymes.
hinkley 9y ago
For the most part, soap soap (not all this other stuff they put in detergent) is a mechanical sanitizer, not a chemical one. Like pulling weeds and throwing them away. If they find some place hospitable to land they'll go back to doing what they do. Weeding only kills the weed if it desiccates or starves to death afterward. Blasting it with petrochemicals on the other hand may destroy it. And some bugs. And some birds. And your two year old's sense of smell... Soap creates a colloid with the germs and oils and dirt. Warm water intensifies this effect. All that goes down the drain and becomes somebody else's problem. Which might be good enough most of the time.
- xkcd-sucks 9y ago
  Cells are just fat micelles, and soap does a pretty good job at breaking them up. This might be considered 'mechanical', but people irreversibly lyse bacteria all the time with SDS, a very simple soap. Not effective against mold spores, bacteria endospores, worm eggs, higher life forms, really tough bacteria, but soap does kill most bacteria you find in poop
  - hinkley 9y ago
    Oh geez. I dunno why I spaced on cell membrane damage. You’re absolutely right. But then what is she culturing on the agar? In the rinse cycle you wouldn’t have much soap left. Maybe something growing on surfaces in the machine? Something that a periodic dose of chlorine kills?
coldtea 9y ago
>Do people expect the laundry to actually sanitize clothes? Sanitize fullu no. They (we) do expect it to kill most germs, and kill the odours (which are caused by bacteria in the first place), and clean them.
starpilot 9y ago
Yes I mean where would one get the crazy idea that soap aids sanitation?
- jonnycomputer 9y ago
  got me some lulz there
jonnycomputer 9y ago
I expected it to sanitize as well as soap does, via mechanical removal. That it didn't do that well enough suggest to me, either that the bacteria are just too well lodged in fabrics, or that an extra rinse cycle (or two) are required, or that the washer was over-loaded.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  Synthetic fabrics have a surface that bacteria attach to really easily. It's one reason gym clothes pick up smells that no amount of washing can get rid of. The only fabric I've ever used which doesn't do this is merino, but it's hard to find merino clothes other than base layer. Merino is so antimicrobial that if you hang dry merino training clothes that are soaked in sweat they will smell fresh.

by wil421 9y ago

komali2 9y ago

Age-old wisdom passed from my grandma to my mom to me is that if poop gets on something, just throw it in the wash, even with other laundry (unless it's like A LOT OF POOP), on a hot cycle. Always seemed to work just fine, now I'm horrified.

mikepurvis 9y ago
Yuck, I would never throw something poopy in the wash— hand scrub it at the laundry sink beforehand for sure.
munificent 9y ago
As someone currently fostering a batch of kittens with stomach bugs... I'm going to go home and burn all of my clothes now.
- dmckeon 9y ago
  You might want to google feline toxoplasmosis. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Parasitology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis#Parasitology
  - munificent 9y ago
    Yeah, I'm familiar with it, though hopefully not familiar familiar with it. As far as we know, it's some other kind of coccidia. Either way, there's a whole lot of washing and hand cleaning going on these days.
  - cm2012 8y ago
    You're more likely to get it from undercooked meat.
cimmanom 9y ago
If the water is hot enough it should be fine. Just like boiling water kills bacteria. (And it doesn't have to actually reach boiling temp to kill the vast majority of pathogens.)

21 9y ago

The chemicals in detergent are pretty powerfull (see Tide Pods Challenge). Also, newer detergents contain enzymes which are particularly good at removing biological stains (but do they kill?) In fact, new washing machines also optimize their temperature profile so that they keep the water longer at ~30-40 degrees C, since this is the optimum temperature for enzymes.

hinkley 9y ago

For the most part, soap soap (not all this other stuff they put in detergent) is a mechanical sanitizer, not a chemical one. Like pulling weeds and throwing them away. If they find some place hospitable to land they'll go back to doing what they do. Weeding only kills the weed if it desiccates or starves to death afterward. Blasting it with petrochemicals on the other hand may destroy it. And some bugs. And some birds. And your two year old's sense of smell... Soap creates a colloid with the germs and oils and dirt. Warm water intensifies this effect. All that goes down the drain and becomes somebody else's problem. Which might be good enough most of the time.

xkcd-sucks 9y ago
Cells are just fat micelles, and soap does a pretty good job at breaking them up. This might be considered 'mechanical', but people irreversibly lyse bacteria all the time with SDS, a very simple soap. Not effective against mold spores, bacteria endospores, worm eggs, higher life forms, really tough bacteria, but soap does kill most bacteria you find in poop
- hinkley 9y ago
  Oh geez. I dunno why I spaced on cell membrane damage. You’re absolutely right. But then what is she culturing on the agar? In the rinse cycle you wouldn’t have much soap left. Maybe something growing on surfaces in the machine? Something that a periodic dose of chlorine kills?

coldtea 9y ago

>Do people expect the laundry to actually sanitize clothes? Sanitize fullu no. They (we) do expect it to kill most germs, and kill the odours (which are caused by bacteria in the first place), and clean them.

starpilot 9y ago

Yes I mean where would one get the crazy idea that soap aids sanitation?

jonnycomputer 9y ago
got me some lulz there

jonnycomputer 9y ago

I expected it to sanitize as well as soap does, via mechanical removal. That it didn't do that well enough suggest to me, either that the bacteria are just too well lodged in fabrics, or that an extra rinse cycle (or two) are required, or that the washer was over-loaded.

jschwartzi 9y ago
Synthetic fabrics have a surface that bacteria attach to really easily. It's one reason gym clothes pick up smells that no amount of washing can get rid of. The only fabric I've ever used which doesn't do this is merino, but it's hard to find merino clothes other than base layer. Merino is so antimicrobial that if you hang dry merino training clothes that are soaked in sweat they will smell fresh.