I had a sewage leak in the yard, got a few tools, extension cords, water hoses, and work clothes dirty with sewage cleaning the muddy poopy mess up. I was so tired after all the clean up I just hosed down what I could and put everything in a pile in the corner of the yard. I know sewage is full of dangerous wee beasties, but if I just left it alone, sitting in the sun for half the day, how long before the items were safe to handle?
While sun exposure can kill a lot of bacteria and fungus and stuff, it has to be direct and drying. Any parts that are hidden from sun and stay wet are breeding more bacteria. Personally, I’d glove up, un-pile the items, and start by hosing it all down with soap and water, let dry. Then use a 1:32 bleach solution on all surfaces to disinfect. Bleach does not disinfect properly if organic material is present, so it has to be cleaned off first. Leave for 10 minutes and rinse, then let it all air dry.
There are other quaternary disinfectants out there that don’t require soap and water cleaning first, but I don’t know which ones are consumer-commercially available or as cheap as bleach. Simple Green makes one, maybe they carry it at hardware stores or home improvement places. It also is probably OK for clothing. Or maybe just throw the clothes out. I suppose you could wash them in the washer with 2/3 cup bleach, then run an empty load with 2 cups of bleach after. Depends on how much you care about the clothes and whether they get bleach damaged.
I wouldn’t leave it to just the sun to disinfect sewage, though.
Depends on what you expect in the sewage - the problem is not only bacteria, but also parasites like worms, whose eggs can survive a pretty long time.
When making compost from human waste, the general rule is to leave it for a year. I don’t think a half-day in the sun will do it.
Nasty poop stuff (as the professionals call it) in the middle of a pile of wet clothes isn’t really going anywhere quickly. You’ll get tired of seeing the pile in your yard before the n.p.s goes away. (Sunlight does kill most everything pretty quickly, but there’s not much sunlight in the middle of a pile of clothes).
But, assuming you’re not in any kind of immune-compromised or sensitive situation:
If this was pretty much sewage from the line leaving your house, frankly, I’d just wash off non-porous stuff (probably not even bother with gloves), toss the clothes (and what I was wearing during the non-porous washing) in the washer, take a shower, and forget about it. I mean, you get your own poop on your hands all the time, and probably don’t do anything more than wash it off with soap and water; you’re probably pretty well exposed to your spouse’s germs, and if you’ve got kids, well then you’re used to washing poop off of things by now I’m sure and don’t need our advice.
Even if this was random first-world sewage from up-pipe, I’d still probably just go with soap and water. The chance of a) there being anything serious in the poop to begin with; and b) the serious stuff surviving a good soap-and-water washing; and c) the stuff leaping from a random spot on your clothes into your mouth in sufficient quantity to make you sick; is pretty darn small.
If this was sewage from a third-world hospital’s Infectious Diseases and Parasites ward, or I was on immuno-suppressant drugs or something, I might start considering more than soap and water, but then again, you got exposed much worse when you got everything dirty to begin with, so it’s kind of late to be paranoid about the tools and clothes you were wearing at the time…
The real key is to get it clean enough to go into your dryer. It’s the hot dry air that will do the beaties in.
I would toss it all into the washer, and knowing me I’d go straight crazy with the bleach bottle and the oxy-stuff. Then a couple of rinses and into the dryer. Run it through two complete dry cycles, until it’s a bit hot to the touch.
??? How hot is your dryer? Even if the air temp. is over 100 C, that doesn’t mean the clothes will get that hot. If the clothes can survive hot air of 100 C without damage, then you can wash them in the washing machine with 100 C and let them dry in the sun.
Hot air in the dryer is not magic; and hot air not hot enough will only encourage nasties to breed.
Sunlight with UV is better than hot air if gets to everywhere, but if worm eggs or similar are involved, then even UV is powerless.
It’s the combination of heat and dryness in the air that works. It’s a very common method for killing most bugs and dehydrating their eggs.
http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/whats_bugging_you/bed_bugs/bedbugs_faqs.asp#killwithout
Of course, the methods listed don’t include normal laundering, because they are meant for surfaces and mattresses where washing machines usually can’t be used.
Once you have washed clothes at 90 C, drying them won’t do anything additionally, but the excessive heat might damage the fabric. Your “cite” also doesn’t list any scientific reasons, methods or research on how the hot air of the magic dryer accomplishes this while the hot water of the washing machine doesn’t.
I also don’t believe a site that recommends steam, since steam cleaners have been proven to be contra-productive against bed bugs: the steam may be 90C hot at the nozzle, but a few inches inside the mattress, it tapers off to 30-40 C - which is just the temp. range bed bugs like most. In general, steam household cleaners are notorious for delivering warm water and making cleaning worse because the container and the power are far too small. (Commercial steamers are different, but these “tips” are apparently meant for the general public).
I would say “over six inches”–any longer than that, and I’d be scared of it.
This is a hair off topic, but I’ve always wondered about the phrase “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” So sunlight will in fact kill bacteria? Is it just the UV that does it or do heat and other wavelengths contribute? I’m guessing that light bulbs won’t do the trick?
Finally, does anyone know if Brandeis was aware of the science when he penned the famous line, or was he just expressing a commonplace sentiment?
Yes.
The UV is the strongest and surest way. That’s why biology labs put UV lamps over stuff they want to disinfect.
Normal light bulbs, no. Special UV lamps for that purpose, yes. But normal households don’t have them because they don’t need them.
But this was the OP’s yard. It is his and his families sewage. There would only be parasite eggs if his family were parasitized, right?
But personally, I’d trash the clothes. Otherwise it would feel sleeve the next time I wore any of the stuff.
Speak for yourself, man!
I don’t know how the OP’s sewage system is hooked up and whether it’s a one-family-house or an apt. building, but there could be other people’s shit in that pipe, too.
Now I know why some health department websites recommend being prepared to throw away what you use to clean up the mess. I hosed things off a second time in the corner of the yard (there was still some thick clay like mud stuck on there), then I put all the stuff spread out in the sunnier part of the yard and told the family to stay away from it for a while. I put garden lime down in the corner (half day sun) and I may throw some dirt on there later.
I didn’t think that my family’s poop was that dangerous, since we are healthy individuals who eat clean food and drink clean water in a clean suburban house that is connected to county sewer. I was concerned (and admittedly do not understand) with what living and growing in my pipes when it isn’t flowing right.
Our septic pipe broke and came to ground, and a neighbors dog found the seeping mess and rolled in it; that’s how we knew there was a problem. (He really stank and we went to where he’d been rolling and found the leak.) We hosed him off as best we could - he thought that was a great game, too - and then called the neighbors to alert them before he bounded home. They shampooed him and as far as I know, that was it and they are all alive and well. Of course, our shit doesn’t stink.
Hey, quicklime! Could you just coat it all in the lime for a day or so and then throw it in the washer? Wouldn’t that solve the problem?
A long time. 1 of the more insidious devices the VietCong used against us in Vietnam was a punji-stick trap, where the stix were smeared with [mostly human] shit. These traps were effective months after they were set. Apparently e. coli is the culprit - it’s so deadly that perforated intestines usually mean a fast death (or at least used to - dunno about the current state of antibiotix). In a lot of cases the soldiers wounded by the punjis survived their stick wounds but succumbed to the shit infection. It also is the reason u occasionally hear about a horrible nursing home death, where the victim gets bedsores, shits in their pants, then gets a runaway infection. Apparently normal human body heat ain’t enough to kill it.