How Disinfectants are Dangerous
Disinfectants by design are dangerous to living organisms including humans. Since disinfectants are designed to kill microorganisms, they are classified as pesticides by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requires all disinfectants, sanitizers, and sterilizers be registered — and the base chemicals used to make them (over 300 different compounds) — to have an EPA registration number.
ALL DISINFECTANTS, SANITIZERS, and STERILIZING CHEMICALS ARE CLASSIFIED AS PESTICIDES
Disinfectants can be either physical or chemical. Examples of physical disinfectants include but are not limited to steam under pressure, heat, ultraviolet type C light (UVC), and high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration. This document focuses on chemical disinfectants.
What Are Common Disinfectants?
The most common types of disinfectants used by medical facilities, institutions, and businesses include bleach, hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, and quaternary ammonium (QUAT) or quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC).
Risk of Exposure
Even if you are not the person disinfecting or using pesticides, you may still be exposed to them. Everywhere you go — home, school, work, out in town, the grocery store, the mall, the doctor’s office — you risk exposure to ammonium salts and other disinfecting compounds solely by being in an area that was treated.
