Mar 6, 2020
Of course, all of our feeds have been inundated with information surrounding the coronavirus (COVID-19) for weeks, and that has amplified over the last week, for obvious reasons. Here at the GreenEarth home office, we have received several inquiries about the effect that GreenEarth Cleaning has on the coronavirus and we’d like to address that to the best of our ability. So, these are the facts that we know at this point in time:
Because GreenEarth’s pure D5 dry cleaning fluid has the highest flash point of any of the alternative solvents (170F), the GreenEarth dry cleaning process allows the clothes to be dried at the highest drying temperature, 158F, which is equivalent to 70C.
At this point in time, the specifics of the epidemiology of the COVID-19 virus have not been identified. However, the World Health Organization issued its update to its table of Thermal Inactivation of Bacteria, Viruses, and Protozo in January 2015. As you can see in the table below, many bacteria, viruses, and protozoa are inactivated at 70C or 158F.
Additionally, the amount of inactivation is a logarithmic function of the amount of time the temperature is applied. The standard drying time at 158F in the GreenEarth Cleaning process is more than 30 minutes, enough time to inactivate most of the viruses shown.
Given the information available at this point in time, because GreenEarth dries at the highest temperature for the longest period of time, we believe it is fair to say, while we do not know the specific behavior of the COVID-19 virus, if it behaves similarly to other viruses that have been tested, the GreenEarth process is the most effective dry cleaning method available to inactivate bacteria and viruses and to potentially inactivate the COVID-19 virus as well.
In summary, because GreenEarth uses an environmentally non-toxic dry cleaning fluid in a gentle process at temperatures that inactivate most bacteria and viruses, your GreenEarth cleaner is a trusted guardian for protecting what matters most to you!
By: Ron Benjamin