The answer is no, although sanitizing and disinfecting may seem like similar activities, there are differences between the two, and the products used to achieve each one are different.
Companies normally hire a commercial cleaning service to ensure their office space is clean and comfortable; they know there’s no one better to clean a crowded space like a professional, and they normally don’t know a lot about cleaning practices and products. They just sense and see when a space is clean and when it is not.
Nevertheless, the people in charge of hiring commercial cleaning services for their office should know a bit about the topic, otherwise, they can’t make sure they are hiring the best person for the job.
Here we will show you the difference between sanitizers and disinfectants, and we recommend that you quiz you commercial cleaning provider on this, to make sure they know this important difference, and that they are true professionals.
For example, if you are dealing with a food service area, you need a sanitizer; if we are talking about a medical space, you need a disinfectant.
A sanitizer is a chemical that diminishes the number of microorganisms to a safe level. To be effective, it does not need to get rid of 100% of the organisms.
A sanitizer does not kill viruses or fungi. In a food service area, the sanitizer has to diminish the bacteria count by 99.999%, and must kill infectious organisms in 30 seconds.
A disinfectant, on the other hand, is a chemical that destroys all organisms. These organisms are bacteria and pathogens that cause disease.
According to the law, a disinfectant has to diminish the level of pathogenic bacteria by 99.999% in a period of time of over 5 minutes but less than 10.
In case you are interested in just removing dirt, this is, general cleaning, you will be ok using an all-purpose cleaner, in fact, a disinfectant or sanitizer won’t get the job done as well as a cleaner will.
