We use UV lights to sanitize medical equipment already. I’ve heard of some offices implementing some UV solutions for cleaning desks and other office surfaces, but nothing new since. Why aren’t we using it in more places? It seems to me to be a cost effective, chemical free, generally *easy* way to disinfect surfaces and objects.
Some examples I thought of would be inside of a refrigerator. These can be full of germs if not properly and regularly cleaned (which many people don’t do) so why not have a UV bulb in there that turns on for a few seconds after the doors close? Or even a cycle that can be scheduled to run each night?
Another would be under cabinet lights in a kitchen. Kitchen counters can be notorious bacteria breeding grounds (the vast majority of food poising cases come from within your own home after all) so why not have some UV light strips underneath that could annihilate all the bacteria automatically?
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Any light between 100-400nm which comprises UV-A, UV-B and UV-C, can break down DNA at a cellular level, and is the primary cause of skin cancer. The biggest reason you don’t see it commonly used to disinfect is the potential for people nearby to get blasted with UV and develop a sunburn or worse.
There are however systems that use UV to treat air coming out of vents acting as a germ filter, there are UV systems paired with occupancy sensing that only come on when it is sure there is nobody in there, and a tech that has taken off since COVID became a thing is 405nm lighting systems that are just outside of the dangerous level for humans but are still effective against single celled organisms.
They are becoming more common in medical, educational and public service facilities but you won’t be able to tell the difference between a 405nm light and a regular one by design.
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