Beauvilliers+-+Matrix+-+Hygiene



Bad hygiene can be bad for the environment (and for keeping your lunch down), but “good” hygiene is proving to be a sustainability problem as well.

= Hygiene as a Sustainability Problem = = =

Starting from a young age we are taught about hygiene. We are told to wash our hands often and brush our teeth several times a day. We are taught bathing habits, how to use soap and shampoo, and eventually we must wash dishes and clean our living quarters. All of this is quite normal and, we are told, good for us. However, our focus on cleanliness is proving to have unfortunate effects on us and our environment. By definition hygiene includes all practices regarding the maintenance of health. As such, the remainder of this discussion will use a broad definition of hygiene which will include sewage management and certain medical practices (primarily the use of antibiotics).

To display our infatuation with hygiene, consider the preparation of food in public dining facilities, such as a college campus dining hall. For the sake of hygiene the preparers of food in such places wear gloves. Because of allergy concerns, such servers will wear a new pair of gloves for each meal they make. At first glance this seems like a great opportunity to reduce the risk of introducing allergens into the food of people with food allergies. However, these gloves are disposable. They are not reused, but are thrown out for eventual decomposition in a landfill. All that plastic waste builds up, and takes an exceedingly long period of time to decompose. Additionally, the plastics the gloves are made form are made from petroleum.

But this is just a small example of how our methods of hygiene are not entirely beneficial. One topic that has become increasingly prevalent and increasingly deadly has been the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Most recently has been the MRSA scare. The rise of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has led to and increased fatality rate of patients in hospitals, including those without related illnesses to begin with. Patients being treated for benign illnesses or simply in the hospital for diagnostic reasons are contracting antibiotic resistant infections and dying. But how are we causing this? The overuse and misuse of antibiotics has caused bacteria to evolve resistance. For those unfamiliar with the process, when an antibiotic is used, it wipes out the vast majority of the bacteria in the body. However, on occasion, a bacterium will have a natural resistance to the drug. That bacterium then multiplies. With the continued use of the antibiotic, the resistant form of the bacteria becomes dominant, and the species of bacteria becomes resistant on a whole. When this population gets large enough, it causes problems like the MRSA scare [Levy].

No part of this explanation necessarily involved the misuse or overuse of the antibiotic. However, if you extrapolate the explanation, you realize that with time, bacteria will naturally become resistant to every current antibiotic. What we do to aggravate the problem is overuse the drugs. By doing so, we artificially accelerate the evolution process so the bacteria become resistant faster than we can keep up 9in the form of developing new drugs). Now, some methods have been used to alleviate this, such as using mixtures of antibiotics, which have reduced chance of any single bacteria having resistance to them all. However, over time, such bacteria do develop, and the mixture eventually becomes useless as well [Shnayerson].

However overuse is only one part of the problem. Misuse is the other half. Misuse includes many problems. For one, when people go to a doctor, they tend to want to leave with a prescription regardless of their symptoms. Most often, this is in the form of an antibiotic. Due to malpractice law in America (which we will not get into in great detail, but is a problem in itself, see [|The Medical Malpractice Myth]) doctors are fearful of not writing prescriptions for antibiotics even when they suspect the illness is caused by a virus (on which antibiotics are useless) or some other cause. This effectively leads to overuse as described above, because the drugs are being used when they are not necessary [Levy]. Another form of misuse is when patients do not take the medications as directed. Most often, this is in the form of prematurely ceasing to take the drug. When they start to feel better, people will stop taking the drug, even if directed to take the whole bottle before stopping. When this is done, it allows some bacteria that might only have partial resistance to survive and potentially develop full resistance at some point [Walters]. Additionally, it allows the spread of genetic information between bacteria so that resistance may spread from one to another physically (see [|About Antibiotic Resistance] for an explanation).

So what makes this all part of the sustainability “matrix?” The answer to that question is based on what drives us to use so many plastic gloves and what leads us to demand antibiotics and then not take them properly. To explore this drive, let’s look at another example. If you walk into any store that carries such products, you will likely find at least one entire aisle focused on household cleaning products. Look under any kitchen sink or in any many closets across the nation and you will find a plethora of liquids, solids, tools, etc. with the sole purpose of making our homes clean. And who can argue with a sparkling clean house? It turns out that our overzealous cleaning, while leaving our houses spotless to the naked eye is poisoning our air and our environment. The evidence is shocking and direct: An EPA report indicates that the air in the average home is two to five times more polluted than that outside the home, mostly due to household cleaning products. In extreme cases it can be as high as 100 times. Additionally, the U.S. Geological survey indicated in 2002 that two thirds or more of U.S. streams contain detergent metabolites and household disinfectants (see [|Household Products] for more statistics, etc.). These compounds can kill animal and plant life and make the water dangerous for people as well. And this is all occurring during a time when asthma rates are increasing at an alarming rate and the percentage if water on the planet that is potable is shrinking.

But now one must ask, does the average person think about what is happening to the chemicals they are using to clean their floor, their counter, their toilet, etc.? From personal experience, the answer is no. That is part of the drive leading to unsustainable practices. People know about the beneficial effects of using these products, and the companies that produce them do a great job about advertising their bacteria killing powers and pleasant odor. However, few are aware of the harmful effects of these products, and the advertisements say nothing of asthma or adversely affecting the environment. If people were given all this information, they would likely cut back on their cleaning (hopefully not to an unsanitary level of course).

Not every nation of group of people is as hygiene crazy as the U.S. In fact, in many places, hygiene, both personal and general sanitation, are in very poor condition. This includes most if not all of the third world. In such nations, the average person gets twice as many diseases with at least half the difference derived from infectious disease alone [Larsen]. This is the other end of the hygiene spectrum but is just as much a sustainability problem. While not really bad for the environment (in fact non chemical laden sewage can be a good fertilizer and is a haven for bacteria) this is a major problem for the people in these areas, which makes it a sustainability problem (the environment is only half of sustainability, something that people often ironically forget). What can we do for these people? One of the major problems in these places, similarly to the developed world, is a lack of education. However, instead of being aware of the side-effects of chemicals to which these people do not even have access, they must be aware of simple hygienic information. For example, they could be taught to keep fecal matter as far from their homes and especially food as is conceivably possible. As clean water becomes more prevalent in these areas through other humanitarian efforts, the next step should be to step in and establish basic hygienic practices and/or facilities. Foreign aid has its own problems (see http://sustainabilityproblems.wikispaces.com/Beauvilliers+-+Matrix+-+Foreign+Aid), but these could be easily addressed in this case.

In conclusion, education on many different levels is necessary to combat the complex problems of and around hygiene. Children must still be taught to be hygienic, but education should begin at a young age to take sustainability and moderation of chemical usage into account. Additionally, household products which are less harmful are being developed and should continue to develop. With a large enough push in the market, products may shift to being exclusively environmentally, and hopefully household friendly. That said, a reduction in overall usage should accompany such a transition. As for antibiotics, people need to understand the mechanism by which they work and the implications so that they can make informed decisions about what they expect from their doctor and are more likely to take their medications as directed. In developing nations, hygiene should quickly follow access to more basic needs so that quality of life continues to improve for those people. People need to think about sustainability on a daily basis, in everything they do. All human action has consequences, good and/or bad, and we must be willing to change when we discover that our practices are bad. Importantly, once such a discovery is made, it must be made widely known so national and international action can be taken.

REFERENCES Levy, Stuart B. //The Antibiotic Paradox//. Perseus Publishing, 2002.

Shnayerson, Michael & Plotkin, Mark J. //The Killers Within//. Back Bay, 2002

Walters, Mark J. //Six Modern Plagues//. Island Press, 2003

Larsen, Bjorn. //Hygiene and Health in Developing Countries//. 2004. .