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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It would have to be a very bright bulb, in terms of UV. A [tanning bed](https://www.familyleisuremedia.com/images/detailed/11/Tanning-Bed-Systems-18-Select-24724.jpg) damages *some* of your skin cells over a period of a few hours. By contrast “disinfection” is defined as killing 99.9% (1000) cells per 10 minutes, and “sterilization” as killing 1 million – 1 billion cells per 10 – 30 minutes. The light bulb would have to be super-bright to accomplish this.
UV also doesn’t “penetrate” too deeply past the first layer of cells, so it’s effective for disinfecting a flat surface for example, but it will NOT disinfect a “blob” of bio-material (a droplet of yogurt for example) because it doesn’t penetrate.
And finally, the biggest issue with UV is that [UV light degrades plastics](https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-us/news/product-resources/uv-and-its-effect-on-plastics-an-overview), and we have A LOT of plastics in our daily objects, including the interior of the refrigerator.
Left out in the sun, plastics yellow out due to the UV from the sun, and eventually become brittle and flake out / break apart / decompose into base chemicals. The effect would be even more pronounced at the UV levels required for disinfection, and you’d have to have special UV-resistant plastics not just in the fridge materials, but also in all the tupperware and food containers that are typically made of plastics. Because you don’t want chemicals from the plastics to be decomposed by the UV light and leach into your food.
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