The durability of a product is one of the many factors that go into a wise purchasing decision. It can be especially difficult to make a good purchasing decision when the buyer isn’t familiar with the product she is supposed to buy, which is why some buyers aren’t sure which factors are more important than others when buying an unfamiliar product. When it comes to sanitizing or disinfecting door mats, some buyers have been asking about the durability of a sanitizing mat rather than other, more important criteria.
While durability is important, it’s definitely not the most important factor to consider when choosing a sanitizing mat for your building’s entrance. The most common type of disinfecting door mat is the open-tray style; these mats are made from moulded rubber, and act like shallow boot trays to hold a pool of sanitizing solution several inches deep. People step into these open tray mats, saturate their feet with sanitizer, and move through into the building. These types of mats were designed specifically for special-purpose environments, such as meat processing plants, laboratory cleanrooms, and other specialty situations. They are chiefly designed for low-volume, slow-moving use, to prevent cross-contamination as staff members move from one area of a building to another; they are not designed for use as an entrance mat. As such, the long-term durability of these types of mats is unknown when used in a high-traffic, high-volume environment, like the lobby of an office building or entrance to a retail store.
Sponge-style sanitizing mats (like Grizzly Sanitize) are the opposite. Grizzly Sanitize was intentionally designed as a high-performance, heavy-duty commercial entrance matting product that can stand up to super high levels of foot traffic without breaking a sweat. Grizzly Sanitize is made from our Grizzly FX super-heavy-duty entrance matting product, which is rated for service levels of over 1,000,000 people per year – that’s a lot of foot traffic! And in addition to being incredibly durable and long-lasting, Grizzly Sanitize is also designed to be exceptionally easy for the public to use. Grizzly Sanitize is built using our Cart Edge ramped vinyl edging to make the edges of the mat exceptionally easy to walk on to. Unlike the open-tray style sanitizing mats, there are no several-inch high rubber walls around a slippery pool of sanitizer to climb! Although this doesn’t sound like much of a problem for able-bodied folks, people with mobility issues or people that use wheelchairs would have a great deal of trouble trying to safely use an open-tray sanitizing mat. At best, these users of your building would slow down the process of controlled entry to your building; at worst, they wouldn’t be able to use the sanitizing mat at all!
Part of the reason to consider the durability of a sanitizing mat is to evaluate its long-term value. The reasoning behind that thinking is that if something is durable, it will last longer and will have a lower cost of ownership. But the COVID-19 pandemic won’t last forever – we won’t be lining up to enter public spaces through a sanitizing mat until the end of time! When considering the long-term value of a mat, you should also consider what benefits that mat will have after the pandemic is over.
Open tray sanitizer mats are a niche product for special-purpose environments, like laboratory clean rooms and meat processing plants. When they’re not filled with sanitizer, they’re essentially just large, extra-deep rubber boot trays – not very useful!
Sponge style sanitizer mats (like Grizzly Sanitize) are the opposite. After the pandemic is over, you can re-purpose your Grizzly Sanitize and use them as conventional entrance mats! The nylon construction that makes Grizzly Sanitize so good at holding sanitizing liquid as a sanitizer mat also makes it incredibly absorbent for water on rainy or snowy winter days. Grizzly Sanitize is made from the same high-performance entrance matting material as our normal Grizzly FX mats, which means you get the benefits of a sanitizing mat system now when you need it, and a pair of heavy-duty entrance mats for after the pandemic has faded!