The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.
You can make your own sanitizer with bleach and water for less than 1 cent per batch.
This solution can be used to sanitize hard surfaces like door knobs, sink handles, light switches, sinks, counters, cutting boards, tables and chairs and so on.
Anytime someone is feeling under the weather in my house, I mix up a batch of sanitizer and hit all the heavily touched surfaces on a daily basis until the illness has subsided. At the restaurant, mixing and using bleach sanitizers are part of our Standard Operating Procedures for every shift, front and back of the house. Health Departments across the country consider this mix effective in reducing to safe levels salmonella, e. coli, staph. aureus, cold and flu viruses, norovirus, and many other bacterial and viral contaminants including the novel Coronavirus (Covid-19).
This recipe below makes an effective sanitizer that kills 99.9% of germs within 2 minutes of contact with the solution and costs less than 1 cent per batch! 1 Gallon of bleach makes 512 batches or 1.4 years of daily sanitizing. Realistically you don’t need to use this daily at home, only when someone is ill. So, there’s no need to panic buy bleach! 1 Gallon will get you through for your home needs. If you have an office or store that is open to the public its a good idea to sanitize at least daily if you are not already doing so.
What’s the difference between sanitizer and disinfectant?
A sanitizer reduces the number of pathogenic bacteria or virus particles on a surface to safe numbers. They generally kill 99.9% of specific pathogenic bacteria and viruses in a specific amount of time.
A disinfectant kills 100% of specific bacteria (soft bodies) and viruses. Disinfectants however, do not destroy dormant bacterial spores (hard bodies).
This is a side note and probably more technical than you need, but I think this stuff is interesting so here you go…
Some pathogenic bacteria such as clostridium botulinum (botulism), clostridium perfringens, clostridium tetani (tetanus), Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Bacillus Cereus create dormant spores as part of their life cycles. These spores are harmless and generally found throughout the environment. Once the spores land in an environment that they prefer (like an oxygen free low acid canning jar for clostridium botulinum), the spores germinate and enter into the soft bodied, reproductive stage of their life cycle and they produce toxins during that germination period that are harmful or deadly. (Bacterial Pathogens of Humans Page 5, Kenneth Todar, PhD) A disinfectant doesn’t destroy these spores, only the soft bodies. In order to destroy these spores you would need a sterilant or a sterilization process like pressure canning which we are not going to get into here, but this is why certain things must be pressure canned.
Print
Bleach Sanitizer
- Prep Time: 1 minute
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 1 minute
- Yield: 2 qts 1x
- Category: Cleaning
- Method: Mixing
- Cuisine: Not Applicable
Description
This is how to make a Bleach Sanitizer which kills 99.9% of germs on hard surfaces in 2 minutes. This size batch makes enough to sanitize my entire 1100 square foot home and then some.
One gallon of bleach will make 512 2Qt batches. That’s 1.4 years of daily sanitizing on one gallon of bleach at less than 1 cent per batch. You do not need to panic buy bleach during this pandemic. Just one gallon will do.
Ingredients
1/2 Tablespoon bleach
2 qts COLD water. See note below.
Instructions
Mix the bleach and water in a mixing bowl or pot.
Use a rag or sponge to apply the sanitizer to clean hard surfaces to sanitize. I also use on leather furniture, though I’m sure any furniture manufacturer would advise against this.
Allow surface to air-dry.
Bleach breaks down quickly when exposed to light. This solution needs to be made and used within 4 hours. If you had an opaque container or spray bottle it may last for 24 hours.
Notes
A drop of bleach will ruin your clothes so be careful pouring. Undiluted bleach is also hard on skin and very bad for eyes so handles with care.
Always use COLD water. Hot water mixed with bleach will emit a toxic gas.
Never mix bleach with any other chemicals!!
If you wanted to make a disinfectant instead of a sanitizer, increase the bleach to water ratio by 4 times and use gloves when using as the higher bleach ratio is hard on the skin.
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