The Janitors' Closet

Another problem with facemasks

As if we don't have enough worries,

"Recent studies estimated an astounding 129 billion face masks being used globally every month (3 million / minute) and most are disposable face masks made from plastic microfibers (Prata et al., 2020). With increasing reports on inappropriate disposal of masks, it is urgent to recognize this potential environmental threat...."

Most municipal recycling programs restrict unwashed food containers, used restroom paper, and such from being put in the recycle container; I'm guessing the same would apply to face masks.  While they likely don't take up a lot of landfill space, the trick is to get them in the landfill.  I see masks along sidewalks and in alleys in my close-to-downtown neighborhood - perhaps to wind up in the storm drain with the next rain, and then into river and ocean.

Here's the paper on the study.

The Free State of Jones

The movie of recent years that I most admire is "The Free State of Jones", a reasonably accurate Hollywood rendering of a couple of counties that succeeded (or tried to) from Mississippi during the Civil War.  It highlights the dark underside of the Confederacy as seen from the perspective of "poor whites": the draft, confiscation of crops in lieu of cash tax payments; also the violent dismantling of Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era.  A friend finally viewed it and sent me the following: 

"So, Robert, I finally saw The Free State of Jones... it's now free on Netflix. 

Great dialogue (relating to the Confederate law exempting from the draft anyone who owned 20 or more slaves, and his son if they owned 40): 

"It's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight."

"Do yah think if we all chipped in and bought one negro, that we might get a couple of weeks off?" 

"They came and took all my corn, I had just ground that corn." 

"Don't worry, we'll get you some corn". 

"But that's not the point, I grew that corn."   

And it had several economic lessons that anyone can understand. "If you take our corn, we got nothing to feed our hogs, if we don't feed our hogs, we got nothing to put in our smoke house, if we got nothing to put in our smoke house, then we'll starve to death come winter. Isn't that murder?"

The movie is a very moving perspective from a common soldier's experience.  It reminded me of The Red Badge of Courage, and a much later novella, A Marine at War. 

"I ain't fighting for cotton, I'm fighting for honor."  Shame is a powerful motivator, though one that seldom gets the results intendeds.  

I can imagine the SPCA didn't like one or two scenes that much... "You know what this tastes like?... Dog"  

It's a damn good story, with examples and lessons of peer group organizing, local bottom up governance, asymmetric conflict, folk leadership; the movie belongs alongside The Seven Samurai, In Dubious Battle, Robin Hood, and Lawrence of Arabia.  

"You can not own a child of G-d", replied the former slave, Moses. 

The shootout at the graveyard and scene in the church was powerful. That's the proper way you kill a tyrant, with a belt around the neck.   

I liked the use of a broken timeline, flashing from the civil war, and reconstruction, to a trial in what looks like it took place sometime in the 1950's. It shows how history is not really distant, rather it's always with us. 

The heart felt plea of Rachel, the Creole mother, who pleaded with Newton to raise their child as white, so he would be free man, is a lesson of distinction between what is legal standing, and how attitudes are shackles. 

Again, damn good movie. 

(The graphic is of a proposal for the design of the new $20.00 bill, featuring Harriet Tubman, a one-time slave and a conductor on the Underground Railroad, just prior to the War.  Indeed, a lady you wouldn't want to mess with.)

Advantages of a well thought out floor maintenance system

Here's a good article from the folks at Contracting Profits. Caught a couple of things I didn't know, such as:

“With the overuse of quat-based disinfectants on floors, a biofilm can be produced, which allows microorganisms to thrive under the self-sacrificing top layer...”  Makes sense - a lot of folks will figure that if they are damp mopping the floor with a disinfectant, the floor is being cleaned.  So you don't clean it first.  Problem is, quats are not generally cleaners.  You succeed in disinfecting the floor (until the biofilm builds up) but do nothing to remove dirt or oil.

We generally use quats for final disinfection on restroom fixtures, not floors - our go-to chemical is hydrogen peroxide based, providing both cleaning and sanitation.  A microfiber mop helps - it scrubs better than a standard cotton mop, and hangs onto the gunk ("gunk" is the technical term in the industry).

Touchpoint disinfecting

I just ran across a good article on combating "enveloped viruses", such as the flu, a good many common colds, and Covid-19 - provided by our friends at CleanLink.

To summarize, an enveloped virus is one that comes with a coating (the "envelope") of fat or protein. If you puncture the envelope, you puncture the virus inside, which prevents it from transmitting (infecting).  Disinfectants are quite good at doing so (viruses are generally easier to kill than bacteria or fungi).  Quaternary ammonia products have been around for 85 years or so, and do quite well, though they irritate eyes and lungs, so protective gear ought be utilized.  Hydrogen peroxide products, like many used in electrostatic applications, work at least as well, without the potential irritation.

An advantage of electrostatic applicators is that they coat all surfaces of the thing aimed at; wiping or pump spraying will often miss prime pathogen areas, such as sides of desks. phone handsets and the undersides of chair arms; pump sprayers also tend to apply disinfectant unevenly - some areas don't get enough dwell time, and other areas are over-wet.  And, as always, dwell time is important. 

A bit ago, I happened to watch a music teacher (quite a conscientious fellow, with a doctorate) sanitizing in a music classroom.  He was spraying the music stands with a trigger bottle, and wiping immediately with a dry cloth.  I asked him what the dell time was on the chemical (from the unlabeled bottle he'd been given) was; he didn't know from "dwell time", but knew that the chemical was referred to by administration as the "purple stuff".  I mentioned that few disinfectants are effective at less than a minute's dwell time (that is, with a wet surface); he thanked me for the insight, and went back to spraying and wiping.

Good thing it's relatively hard to pick up a case of coronavirus from touching an infected surface.