Having a sanitizing mat system at your commercial building’s entrance is one thing – but that’s only half the battle! You need to have both the mat itself, plus sanitizing solution to put in the mat – but can the wrong solution harm your floor?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. There are many, many possible disinfectant chemicals out there that can kill viruses and bacterial (including the COVID-19 coronavirus), but a great deal of these can also seriously – and permanently – damage your flooring.
The most common sanitizing agent that most laypeople would think to use for a job like this is household bleach. Because bleach is such a common, everyday chemical, most people forget about just how dangerous a substance is can be. Household bleach – when mixed with other common household cleaning chemicals – can form dangerous chlorine gas, cause explosions, and even cause serious skin burns. Bleach is just as damaging to both soft and hard surfaces, like your sanitizing mat and the floor underneath it. Household bleach can discolour or stain the colour in your floor; it can dull and mar your floor’s finish; it can even wear off coats of wax on tile or destroy the protective layers on vinyl! And that doesn’t even take into considering the damage that bleach will do to the shoes of the people who are using your sanitizing mats as they enter your building. Bleach should never, ever be used in your sanitizing mats.
The alternative to bleach that is just as effective at killing viruses and bacteria are a type of chemicals called quaternary disinfectants, or “quat” for short. Quaternary disinfectants have all of the antibacterial and antiviral properties of bleach without any of bleach’s destructive side effects. Quaternary disinfectants are the class of sanitizing agent typically used in healthcare and foodservice environments, because they’re extremely effective at disinfecting and sanitizing hard surfaces without being dangerous or harmful to come into contact with human tissue. In fact, many quaternary sanitizers are fully safe for contact with food and food preparation surfaces! The harmless nature of quats makes the vast majority of them completely safe for contact with your floors.
But the best type of sanitizing solution to use with your Grizzly Sanitize mat system is Vital Oxide. Vital Oxide contains quats, but most of its virus-killing power comes from its Chlorine Dioxide composition. Chlorine Dioxide is completely and totally different from household bleach! In fact, it is so safe for contact with people that it’s one of the few disinfectants that have been approved for spraying / fogging in public spaces! Vital Oxide has been proven to kill many viruses, including COVID-19, influenza, norovirus, H1N1, and many more – all without causing any damage to people or property. Vital Oxide has been tested and approved by Health Canada for use against COVID-19, and has a registered drug identification number.
The choice of disinfecting agent that you use in your sanitizing mats matters just as much as the choice of sanitizing mat itself! It can be a difficult choice to navigate – give us a call or send us an email today and we’ll happily walk you through your options and help you find the right product for your building’s needs!