This morning I was going through my email and I got my mass email from The Nest. Every once in a while I like to look around that site, it’s a guilty pleasure. I clicked through to read an article and starting browsing around. Thumbing through articles on being green and came across this..
What’s so bad about this, right? They’re cute, non-toxic, BPA-free and recyclable. Great! No, not really. Antimicrobial isn’t that great. It’s a nicer way of saying pesticide. This is one of my ongoing rants that my husband is suscepted to on a regular basis. It’s time to share that rant with the world.
I find myself on at least a weekly basis yelling at the TV during some cleaning product commercial. They seem to imply that you are a bad mother, or bad wife, or a bad person if your house has one surface that’s not sanitized to hospital standards. We don’t need our houses to be like a microchip manufacturing clean room.
As a country I think we Americans are completely and totally OBSESSED with sanitation and making everything antibacterial. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You should be aware of food safety in your home kitchen and make sure you wash a cutting board that had raw chicken on it before you cut some fruit. Absolutely, 100% behind that.
What I have a problem with is all the wasteful sanitizing wipe stations set up at the grocery store. I have a problem with the big plastic carts at Target for kids, you know the ones that look like cars, covered in Microban. I have a problem with so many commercial cleaning products being antibacterial.
Not all bacteria is bad. We don’t want to kill it all.
The more we spray these antibacterial products around the more of a problem we’re making for ourselves. Remember a while ago when there was a lot of talk about the over use of prescription antibiotics? These medications worked for a while but then the viruses changed and became resistant. Same theory here. Antibacterial soaps and cleaners work. Some say they will kill up to 99.9% of harmful bacteria. The bacteria that’s left are the stronger ones. It’s survival of the fittest. We easily kill off all the weaker bacteria and are only left with the nasty ones which will breed and multiply forcing us to use stronger and stronger pesticides in our homes.
I think this is a problem. Maybe I’m the only one..
So back to the dog bowls.. Please don’t feed your dog out of plastic. Especially if it’s treated with antimicrobial agents. Stick with the good ol’ tried and true stainless steel and wash them out a couple times a week.