American Airlines has been promoting a new chemical they’ll use to disinfect planes, SurfaceWise2, whose active ingredient is reportedly quaternary ammonium.
The airline currently only spray disinfects its aircraft once per week, so a chemical that remains on surfaces and continues to disinfect is desirable. The hope here is that they can meet the cleanliness standards of other airlines like Delta, and at a lower cost.
The EPA just gave the chemical emergency approval, though only for use in airports in Texas and flights departing Texas. As I wrote Monday, apparently chemicals are safer in Texas.
A month ago I wrote that United Airlines was looking at spraying Z71 in its passenger cabins to sanitize them with a coating that would last up to a month, continuing to kill viruses.
Some experts are raising concerns about the safety of the chemical American plans to use in a Washington Post piece.
I lack sufficient expertise in this area to offer a fully formed opinion, but thought I should flag the concern. Most of the criticisms appear to come from the Natural Resources Defense Council which is generally skeptical of chemicals, and seem to be able to be summarized as:
- People will be exposed to the chemical for a prolonged period on long flights, and flight crew working multiple flights though an NRDC scientist acknowledges “acute toxicity seems to be very low.” Still there’s a worry that some people may be sensitive to the chemical (even small percentage risks show up when an airline carries over a hundred million passengers in a normal year).
- The chemical “kills microbes — including beneficial ones” although it’s not clear that should be a major issue in aircraft.
- Cleaning crews have to wear protective equipment when applying it.
The zinger is this: “if the disinfectant remains potent enough to kill the virus, it could also affect passengers.” It’s not clear to me that’s how the science works. Soap is potent enough to kill the virus.
The rest of the concerns expressed concern that most Covid-19 transmission isn’t from surfaces anyway, but fails to note airline HEPA air filters which capture the virus and the rapid refresh rate of cabin air. The chemical shouldn’t be taken as a panacea, as a replacement for hand washing or other caution, but disinfecting with chemicals that kill viruses seems advisable. And the EPA is signing off on this one, albeit in a limited capacity.
The airline is reducing their flight attendant corps by 47% but the memory of toxic uniforms remains fresh. So hopefully the EPA and chemical manufacturer have full done their homework.
Here’s the key sentence:
“The product is electrostatically sprayed with an ultrafine mist, allowing it [to] dry within minutes, creating a polymer coating,” said Catherine Taylor of Snackbox, who is acting as the company’s spokeswoman. “The polymer coating is nontoxic, nonirritating and non-sensitizing, and has been rigorously tested for safety — both in partnership with AA [American Airlines] and EPA.”
People that don’t understand chemistry or physics will often make the mistake of thinking that because a chemical causes some toxicity in one form it MUST by definition cause toxicity in all forms. This is not true. Workers have to wear protection because they will be exposed before the disinfectant polymerizes. General public not so much. It even says later that the fumes “could be harmful without ventilation.” Well…good thing we’re on an airplane with excellent ventilation!
The soap comment is facetious. You wouldn’t sit and inhale soap. You don’t even leave soap on your body for long, you rinse with soap. But most importantly, soap doesn’t necessarily kill the virus. The majority of soap is not anti-bacterial or anti-viral. Soap is effective because it contains oil which binds to the virus and combined with running water rinses any germs off your skin, leaving you clean.
Agree with AdamH, I was going to say the same thing. Antibacterial soap is often sold at the retail level, true antiviral soap is not as easy to find.
American Air’s new SurfaceWise2 is also an approved *pesticide*. Safe for employees and passengers?
Not to bring science into the discussion above…but @Adam and @Peter…viruses with a lipid envelope are easily destroyed by soaps. No special anti-viral compounds necessary. Not all viruses have a lipid envelope, those will be harder to kill. Luckily for those of us living in 2020, coronaviruses do have a lipid bi-layer, which 20 seconds of soap will dissolve and render the virus ineffective at its job.
and of course there’s this: contracting Covid19 from a contaminated surface is far less likely than contracting it from the exhalations of a person sitting just inches away from you on a plane.
This is safety theater.
Unfortunately this restaurant doesn’t go into any details but –
https://www.upwardupdates.com/
“As an additional step to not only mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 in our spaces, but to effectively disinfect, our restaurant Teams have been equipped with an electronic misting machine to dispense hospital grade, non-toxic, food safe, no-rinse required disinfectant that is EPA registered to kill COVID-19. This measure is safe, effective and extremely thorough.”
It would be nice to know what the actual ingredients are.
The key is this provide long term “killing” we can’t continuously wash our arm rest with soap and water :). I have had to fly AA a lot this month and feel very comfortable, planes are clean and staff have been amazing in PHX and PHL.
Of course, it’s all for naught as even the CDC states transmission from surfaces represents very low risk. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EX7f8vjyXV8
Unfortunately, they continue to advance the ridiculous face diaper mandates.
When the airlines drop the masking, at all times, load factors will increase significantly.
Great Rethuglican thinking demonstrated here. Yeah, let’s stop the masks making it even more dangerous to fly, that should increase people flying? Let’s stop testing, that way we will have less cases. Good luck selling this nonsense to anyone with an IQ above a houseplant (aka typical Drumpf voting mouth breather)!
Quaternary ammonium is what is in Clorox/Lysol wipes and most popular non-bleach disinfectants(Lysol, spic n span, etc). It’s not some magical new thing that’s going to kill you any more than it already is. Like with any cleaner, the primary concern is in the person doing the cleaning because they have continual exposure at full concentration. You wear gloves and have adequate ventilation when you use bleach to clean a toilet, but you don’t need those to use a toilet afterwards
There is a restaurant group out in AZ promoting –
“As an additional step to not only mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 in our spaces, but to effectively disinfect, our restaurant Teams have been equipped with an electronic misting machine to dispense hospital grade, non-toxic, food safe, no-rinse required disinfectant that is EPA registered to kill COVID-19. This measure is safe, effective and extremely thorough.”
They don’t mention the chemicals used.
Thanks Marv, for demonstrating the utter nonsense that emanates from those who have fallen prey to this hoax. The numbers are in and the infection and death rate are no worse than the seasonal flu and almost no one wore masks in the past. In fact, if you didn’t then you have no reason to wear one now.
Also, thanks for this one Captain Obvious. “Let’s stop testing, that way we will have less cases.” We certainly will have less “cases” if we don’t spend time looking for them. Unfortunately, that won’t serve the purpose for those individuals who thrive on keeping the low information sheep, i.e. Marv, from being too scared to come out from under their bed.
@James, I’m sure you will be the biggest badass fighting for your life hooked to a ventilator in the ICU! Tough guy in a coma with low O2 sats! Typical Rethuglican, it’s not a problem or real, unless it happens to me!
“Rethuglican”? More proof you’re debating a weak-minded individual. They reduce everything to a political statement and they thrive on labeling people. Also, they resort to emotional nonsense, “Just wait until it happens to you” or “If someone you know gets it, you’ll change your mind”.
Sorry, no I won’t, because unlike you, I’m not going to be swayed by anecdotal stories that basically are little more than “I know a guy” arguments. It’s both fallacious and weak.
@James N – what is your standing within the QAnon hierarchy? Inquiring minds want to know.
One of the leading maroons (sic) on VFTW rears his ugly head. He’s so dense he fails to recognize I already pointed out the ignorance of labeling people. Of course, it will suffice when you’re unable to formulate anything of substance.
As long as no ba, re skin is in contact with sprayed surfaces, like seats or armrests, or the back of your neck on a head rest, the sprayed on residue which is intended to last for a week will be unlikely to cause skin irritation, rashes and burning sensations Just don’t rest your bare forearms on your traytable or armrests and you might not be affected.
I would be more concerned about the flammability of the chemicals used on the planes. Airlines have spent a lot of effort and money on using materials that won’t accelerate on board fires. Spraying these non flammable materials with an accelerant probably would negate much of the safety work done by airlines to increase the survivablilty of cabin fires. So as long as evacuation times aren’t reduced then it might be safe to spray it all over the inside of an airplane.
But I’m sure Texas would have considered this when doing their homework on the subject, they wouldn’t knowingly release toxics on their own surroundings even there would they?
Quats are incredibly dangerous.
Not only can pronged exposure cause chemical sensitivities and severe allergies, but quats get into the blood and can cause all sorts of damage to the human body.
I should know, I was over exposed in my workplace – thanks to mishandling by cleaning staff and lack of ventilation, now even a minor contact with a quat based cleaner will send me into anaphylactic shock.
Quats should NOT be used on planes, it’s not a “miracle chemical”, it’s a new asbestos scandal in the making.